rant about "art"

dlevanchuk

dlevanchuk

i just got to vent out a bit, and see if anybody maybe can explain me a few things..

my girlfriend is a graduate photography student, and I agreed to come on one of the art shows with her.
The art "work" that is typically presented to the masses is so retarded. I mean to the point of some guy taking wet paper and smushing it on the wall. Or some girl taking a paint brush and putting two or three dots on small piece of paper and putting it into some sequence..

when i walk up to it, I cant help but say "this is stupid". My girlfriend starts protecting the "artists", saying that i cant be an asshole to peoples "art", because i dont know the meaning of it. But to me, this trash on walls and 5 year old painting is so pretentious, that i cant even talk to the "artists", who surround themselves with other "artists" and talk about their work.

Am i really that much of an asshole?

There was a video of a guy, medium close up, his head was in the center, and it was one long 7 min shot of his chewing a bubble gum.. how is this art?? And people actually stopped and watched it with a serious look on their face..

i dont get it..

i guess im used to idea that art requires some sort of craft.. with out the craft, art seems to be pure massive pile of pretentious sh*t
 
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It's art when money exchanges hands.
It's cr@p until then.

The whole arty art scene involves a ho-lotta field education where those immersed into the litteral cutting edge of avant garde work already know what has already been done and are blindly pushing the outer boundary or current limit of what the next huge field is going to be.
Think ants scouring a territory looking for food.
Don't know about it until you find it.
You don't know when you've stumbled into a new creative environment to exploit until you've poked a hole into it.
If you don't push you'll never find it.
These folks know that.
I know that.
Normal people such as yourself are likely not even aware of that.

Any old moron can reproduce what everyone already knows people like.
These arty art folks aren't doing that.
These are the innovators that make a bazillion dumb products that'll never ever ever never make it to the shelves of WalMart or whathaveyou.
These guys are the land speed record contestants. They won't all win.
The rocket test pilots. They won't all survive.
The first human experiments of some novel medicine. Some will die.
They are risk takers. They won't all be successful.
Frankly, most of it is sh!t.
 
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My finance' has a fine art degree and was the project manager for the graphics department for a major museum. I give her a hard time about the "arty farty" world quite a bit.

I am with you in the sense that what I view as "good" art is ALWAYS a blending of technique (that requires skill) with imagination and artistry. Art rises to a higher level when it is strictly confined by rules rather than being free form (see the five obstructions). Three dots on a page requires no skill/talent, therefore on some level it's worth is diminished (to me) no matter how good the "idea" is.
 
I both agree and disagree with this. I mean, I've seen more than my share of bad art, famous or not. There's a big non-juried art exhibition here every year called Art All Night. I try not to go unless I'm performing (they have music all weekend long), because anyone who can write a four letter word on a piece of paper with crayon can be displayed next to something someone spent hundreds of hours pouring their skill and heart into. It's sad on many levels.

On the other hand, I've seen some things that I had previously dismissed, that just blew my mind. Mark Rothko, for one. Saw tons of his stuff in books, even a couple pieces in a museum and couldn't help but think "it looks like someone did a crappy job painting the living room wall". Then I went to the Rothko chapel in Houston, TX. Sat, stared, absorbed and finally got it. I was absolutely floored. Still doesn't hold up that well in books, but if I see an individual piece in a museum, I can get into the mindset and really feel the piece.

Contrast with Peit Mondrian, who I still don't get the point of. I work on the same street as the Andy Warhol museum. Warhol irritates the hell out of me. You could argue that I'm having an emotional response, which is the point of art, so Warhol is valid, but for the life of me I have no use for him.

ray makes a good point too. Without taking a chance, and usually being crap, how will we innovate? And by my definition of art ("something that illicits an emotional response and/or makes you think") anything can be and IS art to different people.

Pretensious, but on the other hand, if your heart and soul burns putting a dot on a piece of paper, how can you NOT feel it's important, if only to you? And on the otherhand, if you don't care about the dot on the paper, but someone connects with it in ways you don't understand, you can't say it's not art for them.

Complicated discussion with no singular right answer. Just the way I like them :)
 
rayw said:
And do you know whyyyy, despite being one of the godfathers of impressionism, he sold only one painting while he was alive?
Click to expand...

well, according to that Doctor Who episode, it was something about invisible aliens, right? ;)
 
rayw said:
Any old moron can reproduce what everyone already knows people like.
These arty art folks aren't doing that.
These are the innovators that make a bazillion dumb products that'll never ever ever never make it to the shelves of WalMart or whathaveyou.
These guys are the land speed record contestants. They won't all win.
The rocket test pilots. They won't all survive.
The first human experiments of some novel medicine. Some will die.
They are risk takers. They won't all be successful.
Frankly, most of it is sh!t.
Click to expand...

I concur.

Also, the other discussion regarding *rules* is totally applicable, here. Believe it or not, fine artists DO follow, and build upon, a visual language just like film. The difference is film utilizes popular imagery to convey *it"s* message, whereas the fine arts use, and build upon, many personal visual histories (some believe this an access into a common, archetypal source) which, sometimes, resonate with a viewer (like JoshL's experience with Rothko)...or not . (Incidentally, I've a painter friend who experienced the same feeling when viewing a Rothko in person).
 
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JoshL said:
well, according to that Doctor Who episode, it was something about invisible aliens, right? ;)
Click to expand...
Either that or the NWO reptilians are simply rewriting history to obfuscate the truth tha VVG actually sold a sh!tload of work while alive due to wide held acclaim that his post-impressionistic work would indeed become a good investment someday.
However, to fund their own selective human breeding program, they have elected to delete that information from recorded history so that their own collection of VVG work may exponentially increase in value, especially among fools with more cash than brains. :lol:
 
Art is art.

One: I hate Andy Warhol. His soup cans are moronic and unartistic in my opinion. Karen who is a textile designer/artist loves it. As she said "He's the first to do it. His originality was brilliant."

Two: My bassist was an art major and he framed two crayon drawings that looked like a 3 year old's scribbling. He was so proud because they were given to him by his Professor who had created these masterpieces. . He told me "You don't get the artistic vision. The coloring purpose. This is art for people who study art." Yep, still looked like scribble to me.

Three: We went to see a "Modern Dance Troup". One person stood in the middle of the stage, while others rolled around on the floor. Dancing? Not really.

One person's crap is another person's art.

I myself love detail. Salvador Dali is my personal favorite. Jon J Muth is simply amazing.
 
Excuse me while I ramble for a bit...

The point of any art - be it still or moving images, painting, ink, pencil, sculpture, printed word or audio - is communicating with and, hopefully, rendering emotional your intended audience. Great art is about laying bare the human heart and soul in all its glory, misery, goodness and evil.

The job of the artist is finding a "language" common to the artist and the audience. One of the problems is that art is very rarely taught; the focus is on technique. And the fault lies with the audience as well, appreciating art takes work as well.

I am a fan of John Cage. For those who don't know Cage he was a 20th century composer in the post WWII avant-garde, experimental school. But besides his controversial compositions he was also noted as (in fact probably more "famous" as) a critic/commentator, but using his music itself as the critique. His 4'33" (Four Minutes and Thirty Three Seconds) was Cage sitting motionless in front of a piano for four minutes and 33 seconds. It was the ultimate expression of his definition of music as "the organization of sound." By setting definite boundaries - being "organized" by having a beginning and an end - the audience shifting its feet, coughing, whispering to each other, etc. now becomes music. But beyond that it was also emphasizing the fact that music - and by extension all art - is about interaction with an audience (Cage disapproved of recorded music).

Not knowing anything about Cage and the 20th Century avant-garde, experimental movement would lead you as an audience member to consider 4'33" to be a stupid waste of time. But Cage earned his "right" to make that statement with his career. I had to "work" at being a fan of his.

What annoys me about most artists as that they spend all of their time on technique, force an artificial meaning upon their work after the fact, and then sneer at those who fail to understand. I will take the time to study their work, but it is their job to communicate with me in a language that I can understand.
 
rayw said:
It's art when money exchanges hands.
It's cr@p until then.

The whole arty art scene involves a ho-lotta field education where those immersed into the litteral cutting edge of avant garde work already know what has already been done and are blindly pushing the outer boundary or current limit of what the next huge field is going to be.
Think ants scouring a territory looking for food.
Don't know about it until you find it.
You don't know when you've stumbled into a new creative environment to exploit until you've poked a hole into it.
If you don't push you'll never find it.
These folks know that.
I know that.
Normal people such as yourself are likely not even aware of that.

Any old moron can reproduce what everyone already knows people like.
These arty art folks aren't doing that.
These are the innovators that make a bazillion dumb products that'll never ever ever never make it to the shelves of WalMart or whathaveyou.
These guys are the land speed record contestants. They won't all win.
The rocket test pilots. They won't all survive.
The first human experiments of some novel medicine. Some will die.
They are risk takers. They won't all be successful.
Frankly, most of it is sh!t.
Click to expand...

I like this summation. On this one point:
Any old moron can reproduce what everyone already knows people like.

Sure, I guess, we all know the formulas, yet it's still hard to do; impossibly hard.
Most of that experimental stuff is excruciating. What the one from the 60's that is a 45 push to an open window?
 
Alcove Audio said:
Excuse me while I ramble for a bit...

(Cage disapproved of recorded music).
Click to expand...

Are jou shure about this? I did a lot of research on John Cage and Russolo art of Noise. In some musick compesitions, he used record players to make new sounds. Also John was a teacer on Black mounten Colage and part of the Fluxus. Al using new experimental electronica and recorders.

Am i really that much of an asshole?

The anser is ..............No

Also....I studied fine arts myself. And I have to agree that there is a lot of crap art. I can never say.....this is shit, or this looks like a dog, shiting in my eye's. Jou have tosay things like....I dont find this work stimulating......or say, I find this concept poor, lacking originality and I find the estetic part undevelpt.

Fortenetly there are stil artist with a clear artistic vision and estetic masage :) Here are some friends of mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw7T9dolkmM
 
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bird said:
Michael Snow's Wavelength


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3009876496807585942

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength_(1967_film)
Click to expand...

That's the one. Not a good first date movie. Unless your date is a 400 year old vampire.

I like this one, not even sure if this is Avant-garde or just a home movie.

<object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bogl_-vNxfA?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bogl_-vNxfA?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

http://youtu.be/bogl_-vNxfA
URL]
 
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Professor Sir Ernst Gombrich said in his book The Story Of Art "There really is no such thing as Art. What I mean, of course, is that the word "art" has meant different things at different times."
I'll add: to different people :)
 
Alcove Audio said:
Cage disapproved of recorded music
Click to expand...

Feutus Lapdance said:
Are you sure about this?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. He may have used phono needles, tape recorders and the like, but, to quote Cage, "I don't, myself, use records." He believed that music was all about the interaction between the performer, the audience and the environment.

I have a video tape copy of his 65th birthday celebration which is chock full of wonderful Cage-isms. If you can find a copy it's quite interesting. They performed over 100 of his pieces in a renovated church; sometimes up to ten pieces were being performed simultaneously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGrhL49-YQw
 
For me art is highly subjective. What people think that it is or isn't on various things seems to vary.

For me personally I don't think I would ever consider any video/film I do/will do as "art". It just sounds obnoxious to me and makes me feel pretentious.


But that's just me.
 
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