Fun Stuff > MAKE
As abstract as you can stomach
Johnny C:
--- Quote from: ekmesnz on 17 Dec 2006, 22:34 ---Is no one listening? >< Intent does not matter.
--- End quote ---
Allow me to make a rebuttal.
I'm going to paraphrase a book that I own about literature: if you don't know the actual intent and you merely guess or attempt to provide your own interpretation based on nothing but your own insight, then you are essentially standing on an unlit dock at night attempting to jump onto a boat. You're going to get soaked. The artist's intent - in music, literature, drama, visual art - is a lamp you can set at your feet to help you aim. It's there as a guideline to allow for deeper understanding.
If you don't at least acknowledge and use the artist's intent as a guideline then the art can be manipulated and perverted to suit individual whims that they may be in complete opposition to. Can you imagine if Springsteen's intent with "Born in the U.S.A." was ignored and Ronald Reagan's version of what it meant became the public perception of the song?
Basically, don't be ridiculous. The intent is absolutely important. You do need to know how to read art, and intent helps with that beyond belief.
ScrambledGregs:
I always prefer my interpretations of art to what the artist's intent was. I don't think that's egotistical. I just DESPISE the idea that I can read a book or hear a song and not be qualified to talk about it/rate it/whatever until I know the artist's intent.
Lines:
something we talked about in my aesthetics/philosophy of art class was that intent really only matters if you want to determine if a work is successful or not. intent shouldn't matter in determining if you like something, but if it succeeds in doing what the artist meant for it to do. you can completely disagree with an intent and see a piece as something else, but still like it. so in a way, it doesn't matter, but then again it does. personally i don't want to know the intent until after i have viewed a piece. usually, i separate likability from intent/success. just because something is successful doesn't mean i'm going to love it. i probably hate the intent just as much as the piece, or vice versa. so seriously, it depends on the viewer, not the artist, to say whether intent is important or not. intent is important to me, because if there wasn't an intent, art would not exist. no matter what the meaning in art is, the basic intent is expression of some kind. if it isn't expressing something, where's the art?
personally, i find white on white boring to look at. i find the intent boring. it's just boring to me. i don't like it. i understand it, but i still don't like it. it is the kind of art i walk right past in the museum. taking a 20th century art course actually made me dislike this kind of art even more, because basically what i learned from it, this is where art goes to die.
i'm a more traditional artist, could you tell?
Johnny C:
That's fair. I find it tough to separate intent from my ability to enjoy or appreciate art. Once I know what the artist means to say I can figure out whether I agree or disagree and then whether or not I like the piece.
ekmesnz:
--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 19 Dec 2006, 04:54 ---The problem with suprematism, and e erfu similiar idea that has attemptedc to direct people away from art as something that exists in a ctultural context has been that it itselft has been part of its cultural context. Al ths shit exists in the context of the somewhat elite western fine art movements that attempted to concieve it. It is no more divorced from its cultural context or possesed of a universal appeal than any art in historu. No one has ever fucking looked at white on white and felt some sort of universal emotiuonal connection without the context of knowing its intent, which is of course to have no intent. To have no intent is itself an intwent. Pieces like that are based around the idea of reflection, not communiocation, and to me art is communication. Whote on white is just a mirror. If I was to define art, meaning just visual media, I would say it is a non verbal language, that is, it is a medium for communication. The problem with 'fine' art, that is art which just exists for arts sake, is that it is insular, that is it speaks only to people who are versed in the cultural context of fine art. And that can be fine, but there;s no way that can be universal. I mean, whats that fucking piece called, its' called something like oak tree, and its actually a glass of water, and its got that long piece of text with it, fuck, but anyway, that piece is really, really, fucking clever, but its not like thats gonna be some great amaxing universal peice of art. Art is, to be honest, pretty fucking up itself. But then again, I am an illustrator, so my entire life resolves around trying to communicate via artwork, so, yeah.
Whatever.
What I'm trying to say, at the end of the day, is that Rothko fucking sucks. Go look at fuckign Hogarth or Kittelsen. That's treal fucking art. Thats communication. That's clever. That's fucking GOOD. You knopw?
--- End quote ---
Malevich did indeed succeed in divorcing White on White from its cultural context, in the sense that it is devoid of the iconography he sought to remove from modern work. Talking about how art is "communication" and not "reflection" is nonsense. Art can be both; it can induce reflection as well as communicate emotions. I think what you might be trying to say is that you do not identify with the Postmodern ideal: the self-awareness and examination that resulted from the Modernist movement.
"Fine art" does not exist for its own sake. Art remains a form of expression and communication on the part of the artist. It is senseless to try and convince anyone art is only a pretentious, vapid medium.
I think if you really thought about what I'm saying you'd sort of figure it out for yourself. You cannot possibly believe that White on White posesses an equal amount of social context as the Roettigen Pieta or the Isenheim altarpiece.
And for your information, when I first looked at White on White I felt an emotional connection before the reasoning behind the piece was explained to me, so (in the nicest possible way) I'd be quiet until you know what you're saying.
--- Quote from: Johnny C on 19 Dec 2006, 06:58 ---
--- Quote from: ekmesnz on 17 Dec 2006, 22:34 ---Is no one listening? >< Intent does not matter.
--- End quote ---
Allow me to make a rebuttal.
I'm going to paraphrase a book that I own about literature: if you don't know the actual intent and you merely guess or attempt to provide your own interpretation based on nothing but your own insight, then you are essentially standing on an unlit dock at night attempting to jump onto a boat. You're going to get soaked. The artist's intent - in music, literature, drama, visual art - is a lamp you can set at your feet to help you aim. It's there as a guideline to allow for deeper understanding.
If you don't at least acknowledge and use the artist's intent as a guideline then the art can be manipulated and perverted to suit individual whims that they may be in complete opposition to. Can you imagine if Springsteen's intent with "Born in the U.S.A." was ignored and Ronald Reagan's version of what it meant became the public perception of the song?
Basically, don't be ridiculous. The intent is absolutely important. You do need to know how to read art, and intent helps with that beyond belief.
--- End quote ---
Intent is interesting but not vital to receiving a work's emotional connection. No one needs it. Art is a visual medium! Everything you need is on the canvas before you. It is helpful in establishing reasons and trends in a larger context, however.
I think any halfwit who listens to Springsteen's words will realize that he is not expressing jingoistic patriotism of the kind Reagan would like to think he is.
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