Why are we so illiterate about Art?

[Pax]

Whoever said that there were no new ideas?
Think of all the things that have been invented since that person died.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
But I am not a Marxist and reject that view and the view of 'class struggle' throughout history is the main struggle. Therefore your whole view of art is rejected by me and I have not be satisfied as to why art needs to be the 'text' of anything.

Not so fast. You don't have to agree with Marx to agree with this view of art (which was created in the 50s by French Marxists). First, I'm almost sure I've not made myself entirely clear, because I'm tired and all, so I apologize.

The first thing to know is, are you denying class struggle, or you only claim that is not the driving force behind history?

Second, I am not entirely justifying X conception of art as being inherently good because it comes from X class. I was merely responding to your argument, which asked, I think, "why would it be that the liberal elite is a better standard than the ruling one? In both cases we have elites who are creating something with different but equally valid goals".

To which, I was responding that the ruling elite creates art for its own domination, while the liberal one, as an "institutionalized" revolutionary force (i.e. when the Revolution becomes the Left), tries to deny the "natural order" created by the ruling class.

Now, listen carefully, because it's quite complex, and I might spoil it because it comes from a French thinker I've read in French. (R. Barthes)

You pretty much have to admit that language, in the first place, is a tool in the hand of humanity that has been arbitrarily chosen to shape and describe the world (read my post on differenciation for more details). The great thing about this, is that Marxism is a form of existentialism, that says that humans define themselves by working Nature- (ergo, the idea that the structuralist studies of language fitted perfectly with marxism). This Nature does not have any essence, and neither do humans. They are both shaping and shaped material, with no clear-cut identity.

If the role of Art is to be realist, to represent the Real, then it has to be, as I said, ever moving and self-defining: it has to lie outside of language, because language is merely a conscious mechanism by which we recognize a differanciation system.

Now, whether you are Marxist or not, you've got to admit that society builds an order, and that this order has to look like it is natural and inalienable. In other words, you have to deny Nature; you have to act like the world and humans are known; you therefore have to create art in which there is good and evil, emotional balance, and morale exutory.

If art belonged to Man and not Society, it would be foggy, unclear, passionate; it would refuse to take a chain of meaning (sentences, pictures, sounds) and pose it for anything else than for what it MEANS, rather than creating a new order built on words (apparent language) instead of concepts (what is close to our perception); thus,p it would be profoundly Revolutionary- in a metaphoric way. What I am supposing here, is that purity of creation and mental nirvana can only be reached when art belongs to man.

The only marxist premice you have to admit, is that the liberal elite is more likely to make art that goes in that way. For the rest, you are free to agree on the definition and say it could also be achieved in a non-marxist society.

OK. I'm not sure I'm being clear, but I hope you'll cease being a lawyer for a few moments and read it without this "let's beat Oncle Boris" purpose in mind.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by monolith94
" Can not a chair be a work of art?"

Of course it can. Here's a good example, by Alvar Aalto. Godfather of Finnish industrial design.

Pah. Where's the ergonomics factor?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by monolith94
So I guess you don't agree that "there are no new ideas" ?

Of course not. Before Einstein, there was no Relativity.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


In the case of the common paintings of religious scenes, I'd say it's merely art- because its function was to educate first, not to make revolutionary aesthetic statements.

All art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art.

'Merely art'- are the cave paintings of Lascaux and Altamira 'merely art' or do they have a religious or cultural significance which we cannot divine, or define?


How about the dot painting of Australian aborigines which use a visual language intelligible to aborigines but not to most other people?

Are they avant garde, 'merely art', propaganda, what?

They might superficially look like a once 'avant garde' Damien Hirst painting but they have a different function.

What was once avant garde becomes commonplace- the rejected Impressionists triumph over academicians such as Bouguereau and Tissot, and fetch absurdly high prices, as do Van Gogh and Cezanne and Matisse and Gauguin.

Mondrian's art becomes a Sixties 'Mondrian sack' dress, or wallpaper; Rapahel's cherubs become illustrated notepaper, and Leonardo's ideal man is used as a television lead in.

At the same time, popular 'mass' culture is (re)used in 'avant garde' art- a long tradition from the use of popular melodies in Roman Catholic mass settings, to newspaper clippings, linoleum patterns and disposable toy cars in Picasso's work, or mass produced Duco paint in Jackson Pollock's paintings, or ephemera in the work of Joseph Cornell or advertising in British and American Pop Art.

All art educates to a degree, even 'bad' art, whatever you consider that to be (socialist realism, Nazi Romanticism, Brutalism, Arte Povera), if only to make you think about the alternatives to what you are looking at, or listening to, or living in.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by FS*
The big distinction from my years in art college was commercial art vs. fine art.

The commercial artists were all sellouts and whores, while the fine artists were the ones with no technical prowess and subjective perspectives on art that were so obtuse as to completely lose most viewers.

@ FS*

[Starchild]

There are three forms of art:

1) Art I'd put in my house.
2) Art I'd put in a gallery
3) Crap

Only catagory 1 matters to me, avante-garde and popular opinion be damned.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking


@ FS*

I remember seeing the work of a photographer reviewed in the Arts section of London's 'Time Out'.

Most of the photographs were out of focus, badly organised visually, and clipped clumsily. The reviewer said that the photographer was not interested in traditional concepts of framing, and reproduction, and quality- I thought, well, if that had been a bricklayer building a wall, or a plumber fixing a drain, I'd be suing them.

How the reviewer could intuit that the photographer actually knew what they were doing, or couldn't tell the operations of a camera from the instructions on a boil in the bag meal, I'm not sure.

Of course, that may have been the point, but I'm afraid the photographs didn't stake a claim on my imagination.

Andy Warhol once worked as a commercial artist, as did David Bowie.

I've never understood this supposed difference between 'high art' and 'commercial art'- Shakespeare was a commercial artist, so was Michelangelo, Van Eyck, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Dickens, Picasso and Matisse- they were paid, they expected to be paid, they sold their work.

I see no virtue in starving for hunger's sake.

[Imran Siddiqui]

To which, I was responding that the ruling elite creates art for its own domination, while the liberal one, as an "institutionalized" revolutionary force (i.e. when the Revolution becomes the Left), tries to deny the "natural order" created by the ruling class.

In essense both elite try to create art for their own domination, they just have different defintions on what 'domination' means . The liberal elite want domination over the minds of the 'intellectual' and in order to do so engage in this sort of destructive avant guard.

If the role of Art is to be realist, to represent the Real, then it has to be, as I said, ever moving and self-defining: it has to lie outside of language, because language is merely a conscious mechanism by which we recognize a differanciation system.

But art doesn't always have to represent the real. In fact, the avant guard art you point to doesn't represent any reality. A lot of art may indeed represent reality, but much of it goes beyond reality. Just like it goes beyond language.

you have to deny Nature; you have to act like the world and humans are known; you therefore have to create art in which there is good and evil, emotional balance, and morale exutory.

Not really. Why does a denial of Nature (which I'm not sure most societies do, they embrace Nature and say their order is most conducive to that nature) mean there must be art with is black and white and moral?

creating a new order built on words (apparent language) instead of concepts (what is close to our perception); thus,p it would be profoundly Revolutionary- in a metaphoric way.

Why is it creating a new order rather than continuing an existing one? Is man simply a part of his society? So if art was for man rather than society (as you say), wouldn't the man simply create art which would mostly fit his society? And only a relative few would try to go beyond society.

[The Mad Viking]

In Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee he tells of how they had Chimpanzees complete "abstract expressionist" paintings.

They showed them to artists and critics, and got long, serious analyses of the artistic merits. A lot like what Monolith wrote in his paper.

While most people would take this as invalidating the artists and critics, I'm not so sure.

It does show clearly that ART is 50% in the eye of the beholder. What we bring to art is as important as what is already there.

Plus, chimps are 98% human DNA. Why shouldn't they be artists, too?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
In Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee he tells of how they had Chimpanzees complete "abstract expressionist" paintings.

They showed them to artists and critics, and got long, serious analyses of the artistic merits.

How many of us who don't know say, Chinese calligraphy, or Islamic art, could write about the nuances of either?

Would anyone not familiar with Chinese calligraphy or the different forms of Islamic calligraphy be able to distinguish random brushstrokes from characters or words?

What art is, and is used for, is culturally determined. Many artists have talked about wanting to get back to the way a child looks at the world, before preconceptions about what the world 'should' look like, intruded.

Samuel Beckett took inspiration from a textbook primer for French schoolchildren in order to make his prose style less ornate.

It's entirely possible that a higher primate such as a chimpanzee, given the tools might create 'art', or already does, but how would a human recognise something so far outside their usual understanding?

[Rogan Josh]

Art is dead. Long live Science.

[MOBIUS]

Same old poly eh? Blowing a lot of hot air and chasing your tails as usual...

How many collective hours has everyone wasted typing their overly verbose opinions on this thread and where has it got you?

Some of the stuff on this thread really appalls me, like that mass produced soft-glow Thomas Kinkade sh*t for a start (he must laugh all the way to the bank every time some sucker buys one of his hideously overpriced offerings from one of his chainstores! )...

But it is art - because someone created it and someone (heaven help them!) likes it...

It's that simple.

None of this pseudo-intellectual d*ck waving where every here desperately jostles for position in the various interest camps as usual is required.

Totally unnecessary.

The only good thing about this thread appears to be the complete absence of Fez from this thread - it is just a shame that I had to suffer a Thomas Kinkade painting (the same one twice!) for that dubious pleasure...

So instead of the usual one-upmanship that this site has slipped into, why don't you just start appreciating art for art's sake?

Even if it is Thomas Kinkade!

[yavoon]

art was just expression and entertainment. u express urself and the ppl who view get something out of it.

south park is art, and it ownz. so I like art

[Lefty Scaevola]

Re: Why are we so illiterate about Art?

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Why is it that everyone is so illiterate when it comes to Art? The trend is generalized: only a fraction of usually intelligent people have something intelligent to say about Art. Could it be that art is not considered seriously? Why is it that an intelligent person would accept that art is here to manipulate emotions, and that's it?

Becasue so high a proportion of current art is ****, just an excuse for useless unproductive persons to artificialy inflate their egos.