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!!

[beagle]

No, must admit, whatever you may have heard, that lies entirely outside my purview.

[Pachyderm]

Don't get me wrong, as a racehorse, a racehorse is a thing of beauty. But, same as for the fish, no talent required from the "artist".

[Swatopluk]

The Kishon books have lots of pictures to give context to his statements on the art.
For those that know a (larger) bit of German may try this short excerpt
http://www.ephraimkishon.de/Picassokishausschnitt.htm

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I've always felt art is not about thinking, specifically (that falls more into the category of literature though if the art does that, too, great), but about feeling. Like the heart-attack recovery painting. I want to see the artist in the art or have it create a its own feeling.
I think I've run across one 'painting', the Erasure de Kooning by Robert Rauschenberg, which I will never consider art. I saw it several years ago at the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art, and there was nothing. No feeling, no fascination, no insight into the artist (either of them). His "White Paintings" are just as blank and silly. Seems like something similar to Emin to me. All attention whore, no actual art.

I've found that I tend to like pop art and some other sorts, (I really liked that exhibit, as well as one I'm still hunting for). There's something there, for me at least. But it's classical art that draws me the most--sculpture especially (if you ever end up in San Fransisco, go to the Museum of Asian Art--that place is amazing!).

[Pachyderm]

Read a bit about the Erasure de Kooning.

That is exactly the sort of thing I have been talking about. Pointless, talentless shite given undue attention. Take someone else's work, and rub it out. Genius! Oh, the vision of the man....


If I was de Kooning, I'd have kicked him in the balls until his hair bled.

[Pachyderm]

http://www.myspace.com/jeff_koons


I actually like the balloon animals. Appeals to my inner child, I suppose...


I remember seeing the giant flowery puppy in Bilbao, but was far too concerned with the grotesque ugliness of the actual building for it to leave much of an impression.

[Aggie]

I must admit an indifference to modern art (distinct from "the arts" as a larger category).  I likes what I likes, but it's entirely subjective (what do I get out of it) and in most cases I could really care less what the artist is trying to convey.  Likewise, the "art world" its egos and its hype machine can go hang for all I care (On the surface, I find it to be a bit like the music world, and to be dealt with similarly - I might be bothered to look further into what is considered a classic piece of work in a decade or two, but it's all smoke and mirrors and marketing as it happens). I do take some interest in the techniques and media used to convey the message, from the perspective of a craftsperson, but not the message itself unless it is fairly transparent (political works, for example).  I have some appreciation for sculpture architecture, but then again craft trumps art in many cases.

I find much more pleasure and beauty in nature for the most part, as nearly any living organism is a work of art and wonder beyond anything human hands can create. Contrariwise, I am much more intrigued by picking apart the messages, motives and techniques in advertising than in art.


I think it's the quest for novelty, not as personal exploration, but as one-upmanship presented as personal exploration that gets to me, whether in art or other parralel pursuits.  Quest for novelty = good, but using it to feed your own fevered ego is quite missing the point.


Anyways, I'll go stick my head back in the sand now.

[Opsa]

I am totally with you about being more awed by nature, good Aggie, but I would not call nature "art". It is perhaps a creation (but isn't everything- depending on whether or not you believe in a Creatress/Creator?) but I think that art has to be created to communicate person-to-person.

Typing that, I had to wonder whether or not a painting by a chimpanzee would be something I would think of as "art". It would really depend upon knowing that the ape was trying to express something to an audience, and not just some poo to fling. Is flung poo or the act of flinging poo art?

Yah! Now I'm confused, again. But I'm liking this discussion

[Griffin NoName]

Opsa, elephants can do painting too and have been exhibited.... Pachy may klnow more

[Pachyderm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He7Ge7Sogrk


Yeah, he's good, but he sold out and went commercial. It's difficult to be avant garde when Saatchi buys everything you produce....

[Aggie]

To be clear Ops, I'm not claiming nature is art...  just that in my opinion it puts art to shame.

My post above was not exactly what I wanted to express, but I really can't find the proper words (and/or I'm not totally clear on the subject).  I do believe that there is value in art and I do believe that professional artists should be able to make a living just from art, but OTOH I am bewildered at the commercialization of art.  Still muddled.

[anthrobabe]

Very interesting this idea of what is and what is not art.
Quite often I look at something and go ?
however the study of art is facinating--art history and all.
I did get in a bit of trouble during an art class once when the professor (who was alread a bit of a booger due to her familial relationship with THE Robert Frost-being his 5th removed niece via Mars or whatever doesn't make you diddly biothch-sorry dears) decided to begin the lecture with a discussion on how we as undergrads were ignorant about art and could not really have informed opinions as of yet because we weren't trained artists and yadda, yadda about artist training .
I raised my hand and asked her; "So where did Michelangelo get his degree, what college I mean?"

In my opinion-liking-taste-- if something looks like it was painted by a 4 year old with the shakes then I don't care who they are or what they know--having a degree/years of training/etc does not make it something we should all make a piddle over. Can I and do I like things that are very abstract-- I certainly do-- it is the snobbery that I can not stand.

I agree with you Agujjim--nature isn't art-- it trumps it(hits a homer out of the park!)
Nature trumps all-- and I admit to seeing value and beauty in some (not all) of the display of human remains-- oh sure some is simply to shock and awe and get a buck however much of it is simply amazing-- having a deep love of forensic anthroplogy and human evolution the inner workings of our bodies never ceases to get me. And the gift given by my fellow man of their body is one I am truly grateful for.

The idea of non humans as artists is also something I find very important-- elephants do paint and they seem to receive something from it and put something into it besides simply mimicry or trick taught by human. I know apes paint from something inside-- oh sure they have to get the original idea from a human but they catch on quickly (unless it is a bad day or they aren't interested or simply don't want to do it) and then add to the mix a gorilla who knows some sign language naming her paintings (Koko isn't the only one who does so) and that opens the realm of art up to infinite possibility. One of the most precious  things in the world is a coloring book page which was colored in vibrant red/green/orange and blue by a chimpanzee named Kim and then 'presented' to me via being pushed up and out the 'drop box' by she herself at the zoo. I was coloring with her that day-I was not giving her food treats-just kisses through the bars-and she had her own box of crayons and this piece of cheap paper, wrinkled, stained and colored is in my humble opinion a rival to anything ever produced anywhere. (yep I am biased-I am also correct- I am a good kisser- but not that good 

[beagle]

For me, art has to do one of several things:

1  Capture beauty (e.g a Stubb's horse, a Van Gogh skyscape, or a Fantin-Latour bowl of roses, or music by any number of classical and many non-classical composers and musicians).

2  Capture a humanity or emotion (e.g. Durer's self portraits, or praying hands, or many works by Goya, da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Titian or Holbein). 
This definition also goes for music and literature, when the songwriter/author describes a feeling you previously thought only you had (Seen "The History Boys" yet Griffin? This definition, as regards literature, and an example, are in the film).

3 Provide a new way of looking at something.


Modern art seems to have been exclusively stuck on 3 and "The shock of the new for decades". Maybe DuChamps "fountain" was amusing and groundbreaking at the time, but the aftermath is ultimately as tedious as a small child repeatedly trying out the shock value of  newly learnt swear-words, and as far as profundity goes I  wouldn't have thought it would rate above a 5 (except possibly with urologists).



(This is one of a series. Next week Beagle will be demolishing most modern architecture. If he can borrow a big enough JCB).


P.S.  Love the chimp story Anthrobabe.  I gather Cheeta (from the Tarzan films) has written his memoirs (a ghost-writer might have helped a bit, these highly strung artistes aren't always brilliant with coherent sentences). It's supposed to be good.

[anthrobabe]

P.S.  Love the chimp story Anthrobabe.  I gather Cheeta (from the Tarzan films) has written his memoirs (a ghost-writer might have helped a bit, these highly strung artistes aren't always brilliant with coherent sentences). It's supposed to be good.

Ghost writer identified: 
"James Lever, the Oxford-educated son of a High Court judge. "
Someone in the past had taught and allowed Cheeta to smoke cigars and drink alcohol- thankfully that seems to have stopped.
High strung doesn't even cover it.

[beagle]

Think the link may have had a bit of an accident. Was it this one?

[Swatopluk]

Not that an ape's autobiography is something new. Kafka wrote one for example

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71QQASDMRZL._SS500_.gif

[Griffin NoName]

F******  which admin allowed Swato to see this thread?  Please ensure he does not hijack it with Duck Art.

I bow to the patriarch. I agree with Beagle's List. I'm not so sure about his denoument of item 3 in the list. My inferiority (to society, not Beagle) leads me to wonder if it requires more of a leap of imagination to appreciate modern art and then to wonder if that is valid. Should we have to work harder to appreciate Art?

[Swatopluk]

I have no intention to release the ducks here (yet).
And the Kafka thing was meant serious
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Report_to_an_Academy
I hope no GOPster sees Kafka's other animal story*

*not the one about the giant insect, the one about the Middle Easterners and the canidae.

[Griffin NoName]

Rest easy Swato, I would never take Kafka less than seriously, in any realm.

[Swatopluk]

Oh, would you? 

http://kafka.sourceforge.net/kafka-logo.jpg
---

OK back to seriousness: I say Beuys was a charlatan and/or deranged (even ignoring his dead hare/rabbit fetish)
Discuss!

[Pachyderm]

Beuys's first solo exhibition in a private gallery was opened on November 26, 1965 with one of the artist's most famous and compelling performances: How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare. The artist could be viewed through the glass of the gallery's window. His face was covered in honey and gold leaf, an iron slab was attached to his boot. In his arms he cradled a dead hare, into whose ear he mumbled muffled noises as well as explanations of the drawings that lined the walls. Such materials and actions had specific symbolic value for Beuys. For example, honey was the product of bees who, for Beuys (following Rudolf Steiner), represented as ideal society of warmth and brotherhood. Gold had its importance within alchemical enquiry, and iron, the metal of Mars, stood for a masculine principle of strength and connection to the earth. A photograph from the performance, in which Beuys is sitting with the hare, has been described "by some critics as a new Mona Lisa of the 20th century," though Beuys did not agree with that. Beuys produced many such spectacular, ritualistic performances, and he developed a compelling persona whereby he took on a liminal, shamanistic role, as if to enable passage between different physical and spiritual states

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Beuys


Hmm. Charlatan? Don't know. Deranged I will accept.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

But isn't that the point of contemporary art? I have found that for the most part the weight on the work of said artists isn't in their art but in their (quasi? pseudo?)-philosophical statements regarding their perception on the subject. In fact I would go further to say that for the most part it is a collection of variations on Nietzsche's, starting by Wagner in what we could call the 'Super Artist'  . I recall that I knew of Kandinsky and Cage from their ideas before I saw and/or listened to their work.

OTOH (and to complement Beagle's points), there is a movement to define a distinguishable style, that makes most expositions a theme+variations exercise, as if there was a desperate search for a niche that then is re-imagined to the death, and certainly the commercialization of art has an extremely strong influence in an artist decision to do (and sell) the same painting over and over again.

[Griffin NoName]

How about society gets the art they deserve?

[Pachyderm]

That seems fitting to me.

Although I suspect every society feels the same way about contemporary stuff.

"I tell you, that Samian ware nonsense will never last. And as for Praxiteles, well, flash in the pan, I reckon."

[Griffin NoName]

Which may not quite explain what my ex-ma-in-law's (long gone) ex everyday china set from Woolworth (well, not Actually Hers - we threw that away  ) is doing in the V&A 

[Opsa]

The Beuys Dead Hare description is hilarious! I don't think he needed the honey and gold stuff, just the act of explaining pictures to a dead hare is a brilliant enough scathing statement about trying to reach an unreceptive audience.

Brilliant, I tell you! Definitely art in my book.