HOT Fine Arts Review and Opinion Panel

[Opsa]

As we were going on and on off topic in the Net Neutrality thread, I thought I'd re-open an art discussion here and invite you and your elbow-patched blowhard selves to join me for a plastic glass of cheap wine in the gallery. 

We were discussing what art is and isn't.

Here's my cheese-crumbs-on-my-velvet dress opinion, for what it's worth:

I tend to side with Griffin and Andy Warhol (briefly but quite mistakenly married in the swinging 60's and rumored to have been under the influence of a Thomas Wilfred at the time) that "Art is Anything You Can Get Away With".

I want to say that I really love much of what is called Art. The problem is that so much carp is called art that I can't really say that.  I can say that I am willing to go see most of what is offered at major art museums because whether I like it or not, it will make me think, and in the end that is the most important factor in deciding whether it is truly art or not.

The Old Masters are splendid. Some of the subjects can be slightly tedious because they were tremendously skilled people who were asked to create rich people's portraits and depict scenes from the Bible for good money over and over again. What makes me think is really how studied these paintings are, how detailed and thoughtful. I also like to look for secret messages. They must have had to sit with some of the biggest prima donas of their day and sometimes you can swear they threw in a good little twist at the corner of a lip just to secretly tell all eternity what selfish twerps some of them were. Needless to say, I love to make up stories about the subjects. That's part of the fun.

I love the impressionists. They took the done-to-death subjects of fruit and flowers and buildings and attempted them in a fresh way. Some of these paintings are really more about how the light fell on things than the actual things themselves. This was a quantum leap.

The cubists: hard for some people to love, but egads- they were doing 3-D sculpture on a 2-D surface- how clever is that? Plus, they managed to create an illusion of motion in a still surface. Really fun to figure out.

Abstract painters: these took me the longest to appreciate. One day I was in the Hirschorn museum and I heard a man come out of an exhibit saying: "Sheesh- a three-year-old kid could have done those!" which I took to be a typical bougeoise statement, so I thought I'd go in and look with extra careful eyes. What I first saw was a series of paintings that looked like just blobs of color. But I went to each one and stood for a while just to get the gist. As I moved around the room, I found myself going through an emotional feeling of breaking down and building back up. As I left, I told the guard that I liked them and that I felt like I'd come through some sort of journey. He told me that the artist had painted these as he was recovering from a heart attack. Wow! When I'd stopped to feel these paintings, I had gotten them. I felt challenged to try harder from then on.

Installations can be great, too. Sure, I could just as well have created a stained bed, but that's not the point. The point is that here is a stained bed that you would not have looked at otherwise. You have to look at it and wonder where it came from, what happened just before this scene occurred, what time of day was it when this scene was left this way, is it contemporary or from a long-ago time or is it timeless?

There is stuff out there that I wouldn't see. I wouldn't go to look at human bodies that have been dissected. That to me is too grotesque. I think the body and its workings are beautiful, but to display them as someone else's art is distasteful to me. Would it make me think? Yes. It's make me think "Where's the nearest exit". So is it art? Probably.

[Griffin NoName]

Continuing my excellent discussion with Pachy in the wrong place:

The great thing about art (or, indeed, Art), is that it is so subjective.

I may know next to bugger all about it, but I know what I like...

Not only is it subjective, but I often even disagree with myself.

One day I perceive Emin's bed as Art, the next I think it as meaningful as a pile of bricks

[Pachyderm]

Blowhard? Hide-bound traditionalist, please. And just is wrong with elbow-patches? Provided, of course, they are on a battered old  Harris tweed jacket. (the pipe is optional)


I can say that I am willing to go see most of what is offered at major art museums because whether I like it or not, it will make me think, and in the end that is the most important factor in deciding whether it is truly art or not.

Making people think is one of art's primary functions. I don't particularly like Picasso's Guernica, but I appreciate the depth of feeling that went into it, and what I think he is trying to say with it.

Sure, I could just as well have created a stained bed, but that's not the point. The point is that here is a stained bed that you would not have looked at otherwise

Nope. I am pleased to say that I have never actually seen the piece. I know of it, and have seen images of it, but it is exactly the sort of thing I will go out of my way to avoid. Just because some wealthy idiot is willing to fork out for it does not make it art, let alone Art. The genius is in the marketing, not the creation. The same applies to bifurcated fish. Mummy Fish and Daddy Fish should get the credit there, they created. Simply having the education to work out how to use a bandsaw does not an artist make.

My problem is not so much with the artists (although all the footage of Ms Emin I have seen would indicate an allergy to soap, and dignity), it is with the attitude. Not just theirs, although as a group, they tend to get my back up with the whole "tortured genius, nobody understands me" thing. Not every artist is a tortured genius. The attitude of society to art, as with most other things, is to glorify the transient, and that flat out pisses me off. Permanance is not a bad thing. I would far rather go round ruins and museums than the Tate Modern.

I was at the Pont du Gard many years ago, and gazing up at this massive structure, was told by a local historian that once the Romans had gone, not only could the inhabitants who followed them not build something like it, they lacked the technology to be able to take it down...

Sculpture tends to have a better chance of surviving the ravages of time, but we do have artworks from antiquity. The caves of Lascaux, or Aboriginal works depicting the Dreamtime. They can be stunning, and you can actually identify species of animals in them, some no longer resident in the area. Form, and function. "Don't waste your spears on this one, it fights back.."

Most "modern" art leaves me cold, but then I am conservative by nature. (Note small c, art thread, not politics). I was accused by my own father of being a curmudgeon. It is a badge I wear with pride.

[Pachyderm]

A consummate storyteller, Tracey Emin engages the viewer with her candid exploration of universal emotions. Well-known for her confessional art, Tracey Emin reveals intimate details from her life to engage the viewer with her expressions of universal emotions. Her ability to integrate her work and personal life enables Emin to establish an intimacy with the viewer.

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/tracey_emin.htm



Crap. Sheer, unadulterated bullshit. Otherwise known as Marketing Speak.

A tent with a list of the people you have slept with is "confessional art" is it?

Her ability to integrate her work and personal life enables Emin to establish an intimacy with the viewer.

It's an unmade bed, with her dirty laundry on it!


In 1974, Joseph Beuys did a performance called I Love America, and America Loves Me where he lived in a gallery with a wild coyote for seven days as a symbolic act of reconciliation with nature. In 1996, Tracey Emin lived in a locked room in a gallery for fourteen days, with nothing but a lot of empty canvases and art materials, in an attempt to reconcile herself with paintings. Viewed through a series of wide-angle lenses embedded in the walls, Emin could be watched, stark naked, shaking off her painting demons. Starting by making images like the artists she really admired (i.e. Egon Schiele, Edvard Munch, Yves Klein), Emin's two-week art-therapy session resulted in a massive outpouring of autobiographical images, and the discovery of a style all her own. The room was extracted in its entirety, and now exists as an installation work. 

It's not even original....

Look at her work, then look at the roof of the Sistine Chapel.


I happen to have chosen Ms Emin as my personal example of what I feel is wrong, but she is far from alone....

[beagle]

The trick is to just ignore it. Once you start discussing it or treating it seriously they've won the marketing game.

[Pachyderm]

Very true. However, as we have started discussing it, I am finding that I enjoy thinking about it. Art is a subject that I should definitely consider more, and this is starting me in that direction.

I realise that so far it appears to be the "Andy hates Tracey Show", but she is one of the few YBA names that I know. When I have looked into it further, I'm sure I'll find others that I consider as fatuous, and who knows, there may be a pleasant surprise or two as well....

[beagle]

I've got time for Mark Wallinger. He's the bloke who recreated Brian Haw's Iraq protest in the Tate.

He also did a film called "Threshold to the Kingdom" which just shows people arriving at an airport and joyfully meeting their relatives and partners again, set to the Allegri Miserere. With the deliberately ambiguous title it's surprisingly moving stuff for anyone brought up in a Christian tradition.

Unfortunately only a still image online as far as I can find.

[Griffin NoName]

Sculpture tends to have a better chance of surviving the ravages of time, but we do have artworks from antiquity. The caves of Lascaux, or Aboriginal works depicting the Dreamtime. They can be stunning, and you can actually identify species of animals in them, some no longer resident in the area. Form, and function. "Don't waste your spears on this one, it fights back.."

I think it's marvellous that a typical slut-bed from this era will possibly be discovered by future species.

The trick is to just ignore it. Once you start discussing it or treating it seriously they've won the marketing game.

I disagree. As long as money is not involved in the discussion. Everything in our existence needs discussing.


I learnt a lesson seeing Rothco. The first time, I was left totally unimpressed and mystified. The second time the gallery was empty and the entire space was only Rothco. I sat on a bench in a huge space,alone and completely surrounded. I was entirely suprised by the feelings it evoked.

It taught me never to dismiss anything too lightly. ......Um, in the "art" world, that is.

[beagle]

Liked that Rothko one (can't remember the title) where the bottom half is sea blue and the top half black, and the boundary slightly curved giving the impression of a landless, empty Earth. Not so taken with any others of his though.

The trick is to just ignore it. Once you start discussing it or treating it seriously they've won the marketing game.

I disagree. As long as money is not involved in the discussion. Everything in our existence needs discussing.

OK, but the context of the discussion should be comparison with other great spin and marketing techniques, Ford or Heinz's latest ad campaigns.

[Griffin NoName]

OK, but the context of the discussion should be comparison with other great spin and marketing techniques, Ford or Heinz's latest ad campaigns.

Or political campaigns?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Of course, political art is often splendid.

[Pachyderm]

Not impressed by Mark Wallinger.

His Turner Prize nomination in 1995 was for a racehorse. What's artistic about that?

And as for State Britain, which actually did win the TP (and that is a whole other can of worms), well, credit should go to Brian Haw really, MW just recreated it. And there was the whole black line "maybe the police will remove the half that is breaking the Parliament protest exclusion zone" thing. Pity that that the exclusion zone stopped 300 yards away. Makes him look like a twat, in my estimation. More marketing, less actual checking of facts.  

Haven't seen the Threshold to the Kingdom yet.

[beagle]

Not impressed by Mark Wallinger.

His Turner Prize nomination in 1995 was for a racehorse. What's artistic about that?

I live near Newmarket, I could be biased on this one.

And as for State Britain, which actually did win the TP (and that is a whole other can of worms), well, credit should go to Brian Haw really, MW just recreated it. And there was the whole black line "maybe the police will remove the half that is breaking the Parliament protest exclusion zone" thing. Pity that that the exclusion zone stopped 300 yards away. Makes him look like a twat, in my estimation. More marketing, less actual checking of facts.  

All true, but at least he drew attention to civil liberties transgressions, instead of f****** about with Emin-style navel-gazing. Mind you, The Torygraph approved so he's probably doomed in the art world.

Haven't seen the Threshold to the Kingdom yet.

Well worth seeing if you get a chance.

[Swatopluk]

As far as modern art goes, I side with Ephraim Kishon (who was originally a sculptor before he became a writer):
If someone claims to be an artist, (s)he has to prove first that (s)he has command of the craft and technique (i.e. can paint or sculpt in the 'oldfashioned' realist way). Once (s)he has demonstrated that, (s)he has at least the benefit of the doubt, when presenting daubings/blots as art. Kishon cites Picasso in this context (and quotes with much Schadenfreude what Picasso wrote about art critics in his testament)
I don't know whether his two books (and one play) on the topic are available in English
1. Picasso war kein Scharlatan (Picasso was no charlatan)
2. Picassos süße Rache (Picassos's sweet revenge)
3. Zieh den Stecker raus, das Wasser kocht! (Pull the plug, the water is boiling!) (a play)
I recommend those.

[Griffin NoName]

Oh, No! Have we got to the discussion about READING about art rather than doing it or seeing it? 

Not impressed by Mark Wallinger.

His Turner Prize nomination in 1995 was for a racehorse. What's artistic about that?

I live near Newmarket, I could be biased on this one.

And have you seen the prices of dresses in Newmarket?   

[Griffin NoName]

Oh, No! Have we got to the discussion about READING about art rather than doing it or seeing it? 

Not impressed by Mark Wallinger.

His Turner Prize nomination in 1995 was for a racehorse. What's artistic about that?

I live near Newmarket, I could be biased on this one.    

And have you seen the prices of dresses in Newmarket?   

talk about market prices!!