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Fun Stuff => MAKE => Topic started by: neek on 04 Dec 2006, 23:32
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Anyone ever just look at non-objective abstract art and wonder, what sort of bullshit are they pulling? I don't mean the obvious hacked attempts at being "deep"--you know, the balled up A1 drawing paper or the white canvas painted white. I mean, things that look like someone put effort into, but it's confusing as to how much. Or if the meaning you're getting is "intentional."
When I produce abstract art, I generally produce it as a satire of it (cf. candy wrapper bondage i (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/9275342/) or the plague (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/8638460/)), though some abstract art is a serious attempt at self-expression (cf. guilt (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/40795684/) or the leash (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/17206682/)). Ultimately, however, I cannot but help satire this artform. But that's perhaps I haven't seen anything good come out of this in a LONG while. Does anyone even have an appreciation of abstraction? Discuss.
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or the white canvas painted white.
My 2nd favourite play is Art (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Play-Yasmina-Reza/dp/0571190146/sr=8-1/qid=1165266780/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-7133004-3592117?ie=UTF8&s=books) by Yazmine Reza. Discusses this completely.
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Kurt Vonnegut's book "Bluebeard" hits on this a little bit, if I recall correctly. I may be wrong, but I believe he was the one that mentioned the whole notion that in modern art, you don't have to be the best at doing something, just the first? For example, the only person who really gets any artistic credit for, say, a white-paint-on-white-canvas painting would be the person that first did it; all others would just then be copying it?
I also liked one of the characters in Chuck Palahniuk's novel "Diary;" she talks about how in her art classes, everyone was trying so hard to be abstract and post-modern that the only real way to 'rebel' against the standard expectations was to paint 'typical' still-lifes and the like.
I'm not much of an artist though, and I usually don't know what the hell I am talking about. I just know that at LEAST 50% of the time, modern art makes me feel fucking dumb.
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The whole idea of the abstract expressionist movement is found in two things (though not exclusively): first, the persona of the artist and the process of making, and second, the experience of the material, paint, for its own sake. Jackson pollock became famous not because of his paintings, though they were unique and had this strange optical quality, but because he embodied this exceedingly masculine, expressive, brooding persona that was captivating. the other reason abstract expressionism became popular, as i mentioned, was the paint itself. it's a gorgeous material, sumptuous, bright and beautiful. painters like Rothko and Pollock, and those who followed, found a way to make paint be only paint, and beautiful. a canvas painted white, on the other hand, straddles a number of issues. some art, like John Cages' 4.33 and Duchamps "fountain", and alot of what Beuys did were important simply because they challenged what art was. the white canvas is supposed to be a challenge to the conventions of art, be it ironic or not.
is is bullshit? not quite, but it has gone very much out of favor in the past few years, for a few notable reasons. first, the abstract expressionists were often drunken, misogynist assholes(misogynist in that the style of painting was seen to be exclusively masculine). Pollock died in a drunk driving accident. Rothko committed suicide on finding he had both cirhossis of the liver(sp?) and lung cancer from smoking and drinking. so, it's okay to think theyr'e bullshit, so long as you know there was a seed of something important in there somewhere.
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Also, apparently some genius' at Case Western Reserve figured out how to duplicate Jackson Pollack's works in photoshop... I'll link the article once I find it again.
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That would be awesome if you find that link. I'm on Case's campus like every freakin' day. T'would be cool to meet the guy.
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I also liked one of the characters in Chuck Palahniuk's novel "Diary;" she talks about how in her art classes, everyone was trying so hard to be abstract and post-modern that the only real way to 'rebel' against the standard expectations was to paint 'typical' still-lifes and the like.
ditto.
most non-objective abstract art, like minimalism, though i understand what the artist is going for, i don't like it. i never will. there's something completely different between a pollock and a canvas painted white. no matter how hard you try, if you tried to paint like pollock or rothko or kline, it wouldn't come out anywhere near the same, but anyone can paint a canvas white. there is no skill behind a canvas painted white. i want to appreciate art not only for its ideas, but its craft and its beauty because of it. there are other ways to show your appreciation for paint.
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Here's the Jackson Pollack article (http://physics.physorg.com/news84452049.html), Cernunnos.
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Thanks. I'm reading it now.
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Cage's 4'33" is a great piece. It's easy to make four and a half minutes of silence, but it's hard to make that silence meaningful. So far, that's what it seems to be getting at with modern art.
I'll have to plow through these articles once the semester's done and finished...
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<3 expressionism
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Most abstract art is valid and meaningful. If you ever take a survey course (i.e. the history of) in Western art, all the way from 3000 BCE to the present, when the teacher FINALLY gets to Modernism and Post-Modernism, you will understand. A thousand angels will descend from heaven, there will be singing, and you will say, "I get it!"
Unfortunately, few people have the mettle or the resources to do such a thing. As a result, I'll try for a simpler explanation:
Aesthetic simplicity is not the same thing as technical inferiority. That is, some of the greatest paintings in the world are Chinese ink-on-paper zen drawings of one or two strokes, yet they are proportionally and emotionally some of the most perfect things in the world. The (imho) greatest painting of the 20th Century, Constantin Malevich's _White on White_ (you can Google it), is just a white square, yet it is artistically equal to thousands that have come before it. Why? Not because he did it first, but because like all paintings, there are emotional and technical reasons he did what he did, and his painting successfully communicates those subconscious reasons to the viewer.
(I'm an Art History major. Could you tell?)
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My art appreciation course covered it. Well, some of it. I have to take it again, though. Not satisfied with a grade of F, quite frankly. So far, it seems that not everyone will get the message of the art piece. And that the line between bullshit and art is quite, quite thin.
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The (imho) greatest painting of the 20th Century, Constantin Malevich's _White on White_ (you can Google it), is just a white square, yet it is artistically equal to thousands that have come before it. Why? Not because he did it first, but because like all paintings, there are emotional and technical reasons he did what he did, and his painting successfully communicates those subconscious reasons to the viewer.
(I'm an Art History major. Could you tell?)
Does it successfully communicate said subconscious reasons to the viewer if he/she has not read up on them?
I've just googled it and I think I like it. I find it visually pleasing, but it doesn't say anything to me yet. If it only says something to me after I read what he thought it was supposed to say, or what other people think it says, I don't know if I consider that a successful communication.
That said, Rothko touches a weird chord in me but I've spent more time looking at his stuff so maybe I just need to stare at "White on White" for awhile.
The thing about most of the abstract expressionist stuff is that, at least as far as my studies have indicated, they were going for completely emotional responses to aesthetics. No symbols, no figures, just a gut reaction to an aesthetic arrangement of color and shape and whatnot. This is, of course, debatable as just about anything in art tends to be.
I'm not an art history major myself, but I did just study Pollock and Rothko and DeKooning and others and the like in a class and I'm considering a minor in art history to go with my Communications major.
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Does it successfully communicate said subconscious reasons to the viewer if he/she has not read up on them?
I've just googled it and I think I like it. I find it visually pleasing, but it doesn't say anything to me yet. If it only says something to me after I read what he thought it was supposed to say, or what other people think it says, I don't know if I consider that a successful communication.
That said, Rothko touches a weird chord in me but I've spent more time looking at his stuff so maybe I just need to stare at "White on White" for awhile.
The thing about most of the abstract expressionist stuff is that, at least as far as my studies have indicated, they were going for completely emotional responses to aesthetics. No symbols, no figures, just a gut reaction to an aesthetic arrangement of color and shape and whatnot. This is, of course, debatable as just about anything in art tends to be.
I'm not an art history major myself, but I did just study Pollock and Rothko and DeKooning and others and the like in a class and I'm considering a minor in art history to go with my Communications major.
Malevich was a member of a movement he founded called Suprematism. Suprematism, White on White especially, was founded on the principle that viewing its artwork required no cultural context or outside knowledge. Since Art History has been dominated in the Western world by Christian iconography and other themes that play off of historical and cultural concepts (as is natural in art), viewing artwork inherently requires some knowledge of the culture or time. According to Malevich, his work is the greatest common denominator among all men--reduced to abstract shapes and colors, the emotional response is pure and unfettered by context. In other words, yes: the very idea is that you need not read up on Malevich to "get" his work.
Rothko is wonderful. Hard to find people who agree with me there, though.
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I don't "know" anything about art. The extent of my art learning was a philosophy course last year in college called Aesthetics, where we debated such things as what is art, what is perception and how does it effect art, etc etc. When it comes to art, I honestly don't give a shit what method/material the artist used, or what their intention was, or anything like that. I look at art and either I like it or I don't. I hate the idea that I need to study hundreds of years of art to be "qualified" to say that I think if White on White is the greatest painting of the 20th century, then we are totally fucked as a civilization. It does not communicate a god damn thing to me, subconsciously or not. If I have to read any kind of background on a piece to appreciate it--let's not deal in "understand" because that is too pretentious for me--then it has utterly failed in my opinion.
In that Aesthetics class, we were asked to pretend that we saw three identical pieces of art. It was abstract expressionism. We were supposed to imagine that they were identical, completely identical. One was by Jackson Pollock, one was by an ape, and one was by an art student trying to be a smartass. Which was is art?? Are any of them art?? Is the ape one not art because the creature didn't intend to make art?? We went in circles, as you can imagine, but I remember wanting to say that, art or not, it just wasn't interesting. Abstract expressionism is more interesting in theory than in result. It's funner to talk about than to look at, IMO.
I like art to be intuitive. I suppose it's why I've never gotten into art, and have stuck to words and music as my art forms of choice. Sometimes you do have to work at art to get into it, but abstract expressionism has never worked for me. Some of it is cool to look at, but that's all it "means" to me. I can read my own ideas and images into it, but I do the same thing with clouds, oil rainbows in puddles, and ceiling patterns.
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Intent is key, sorry. If you don't care about intention and just care about pretty pictures, might I suggest watercolours of flowers and velvet paintings of Elvis?
Also you're confusing abstraction with non-objective art.
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I don't "know" anything about art. The extent of my art learning was a philosophy course last year in college called Aesthetics, where we debated such things as what is art, what is perception and how does it effect art, etc etc. When it comes to art, I honestly don't give a shit what method/material the artist used, or what their intention was, or anything like that. I look at art and either I like it or I don't. I hate the idea that I need to study hundreds of years of art to be "qualified" to say that I think if White on White is the greatest painting of the 20th century, then we are totally fucked as a civilization. It does not communicate a god damn thing to me, subconsciously or not. If I have to read any kind of background on a piece to appreciate it--let's not deal in "understand" because that is too pretentious for me--then it has utterly failed in my opinion.
In that Aesthetics class, we were asked to pretend that we saw three identical pieces of art. It was abstract expressionism. We were supposed to imagine that they were identical, completely identical. One was by Jackson Pollock, one was by an ape, and one was by an art student trying to be a smartass. Which was is art?? Are any of them art?? Is the ape one not art because the creature didn't intend to make art?? We went in circles, as you can imagine, but I remember wanting to say that, art or not, it just wasn't interesting. Abstract expressionism is more interesting in theory than in result. It's funner to talk about than to look at, IMO.
I like art to be intuitive. I suppose it's why I've never gotten into art, and have stuck to words and music as my art forms of choice. Sometimes you do have to work at art to get into it, but abstract expressionism has never worked for me. Some of it is cool to look at, but that's all it "means" to me. I can read my own ideas and images into it, but I do the same thing with clouds, oil rainbows in puddles, and ceiling patterns.
I think you missed part of my point. Intent is NOT key, and the very IDEA is that you need not read anything to enjoy White on White. This fact does not mean you must enjoy it--revulsion or apathy are both valid responses to what Malevich has done; they just aren't my responses.
Jackson Pollock is a genius, with the power to create what apes and smartass art students cannot. To give you an idea: mathematicians are finding fractals in his work. In other words, his artistic sensibility, his sense of what looks good on paper, creates some of the most complex and beautiful concepts in the known world. That's pretty intense. Again, however, not liking it is okay.
It is true that the study of thousands of years of art is a helpful component in understanding why those artists did and do what they do, but that is because these artists aren't painting in a void. They saw those thousands of years of art, and modernism and post-modernism was their response.
And about Pollock not being interesting: I highly recommend checking him out in person. It is, at least for me, life altering.
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Also you're confusing abstraction with non-objective art.
Oh, and non-objective art is a form of abstraction in the pedestrian sense that abstraction are forms that you can't identify with real world objects, so they can't really be confused. However, strictly speaking, all works of art, even photographs, are abstract.
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This is why I like words and music better. You don't have to know anything about intent to like it or get it. Again, intuitive art trumps non-intuitive art everytime for this reason. I remember hearing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as a young'un and not knowing anything about concept albums or pop art or any of that, and I loved it anyway. There was a kind of mystery to it before I read up on the Beatles and what their 'intent' was, but knowing or not knowing the intent I liked it equally.
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This is why I like words and music better. You don't have to know anything about intent to like it or get it.
I disagree strongly with that. Books like Lord Of The Flies become a million times better once you discover the intent of the author. Also the intent of many musicians makes me appreciate the music a lot more.
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This is why I like words and music better. You don't have to know anything about intent to like it or get it.
Is no one listening? >< Intent does not matter.
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But hard-to-type-username just said it does matter.
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But hard-to-type-username just said it does matter.
Well, in cases of an allegory like Lord of the Flies I guess it may be interesting to see what he is talking about, but I don't think that significantly affects how the story appeals or doesn't appeal to the reader.
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Intent can even direct you away from it - It takes away from how much they art means to you in particular, and reduces the individuality of your relationship with the particular art piece.
Isn't art so much more interesting when everyone each has their own individual interpretation on it?
Thoughts, i think, will all be very unique, but the one thing that is interpreted in almost the same from everyone is feeling, emotion. Intent is not usually required in explaining the feeling. unless the art is particularly complex and bad at doing that...
.. IMO.
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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?
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Is no one listening? >< Intent does not matter.
Allow me to make a rebuttal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY).
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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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?
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.
Is no one listening? >< Intent does not matter.
Allow me to make a rebuttal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY).
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.
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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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.
Of course it does. It posseses the cultural context of the Russian avant-garde in the 1910's. A fusion of cubism and futurism with philosophical, psychological and mathematical concepts of the time. Entirely of its era and place, inspired by contemporary Russian figures such as Ouspensky and artistic ideas like Zaum, born of the brief flowering of Russian culture at the end of the tsars and before the communists cracked down. It has exactly as much social context as any other picture produced in the history of man. The fact that is has tried to elude its cultural context is as much a comment on the culture that produced it as anything else. Its visual vocabulary is set and defined by certain narrow philosophical ideas. To imagine that this picture, or others similiar to it, can magically escape such restraints is a conceit. Indeed, to argue that this picture has no cultural context, you would have to invoke the artists intent to have it escape such context and...well, lets not even go there.
About fine art:
I'm an art student, studying to be a commercial illustrator. I find it impossible not to divide the world of art up by its academic provinces: Fine art, graphics, illustration, textiles, etc. etc. Thus, when I say 'fine art' I mean the area of art covered by a fine art degree which is, in fact, pretty much art for arts sake, except that, of course, it is a medium for communication. A visual language. Your point about reflection and communication existing simultaneously is interesting, but I don't accept it quite, except that to say communication causes reflection. It's a reaction to outside stimuli as much as anything we do is (a mirror only reflects something when there is something to reflect, or something like that.) In that case, we can still say that art is a medium of communication. Most, if not all, art exists to make a statement about the world. Often, nowadays, that statement is merely about art, which is one reason I consider fine art practice in the modern sense to be somewhat self-serving and insular. Art has become something whose audience is primarily other artists and a cultural or intellectual elite who take an interest in the cerebral side of the whole affair. I (drunkenly btw) bought up the example of Michael Craig-Martins piece 'An Oak Tree', which (you probably already know this) is a glass of water accompanied by a piece of text in which the artist claims via a Q and A to have turned the glass of water in to an oak tree without changing its appearance. It's a rather clever piece. It made me chucke a bit and think about Kant. But to the man on the street it is, quite frankly, a pile of shit. It's more a philosophical thought experiment than art, the same with many other peices, Fountain being perhaps the most famous, though I love that for the sheer fucking audacity. Goodness, I'm waffling on. Anyway, my point was that whilst white on white may, in fact, be communicating something, it is not, despite the concept behind it, communicating it well and clearly. The reception of the message is dependent to a large extent on the recipients ability to understand it, or even understand that it is an attempt to communicate. If you were to see White on White outside the gallery, your first idea, I can assure you, would not be to consider it a profound piece of art. You need a certain mindset or level of knowledge to even understand that a black circle or a white square might be trying to communicate something. Give me a Hiroshige any day!
EDIT: Twatted up the quote tags.
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I respectfully bow out of this thread. It's over my head, and it's clear nobody is going to change my mind, or I their's.
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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.
Of course it does. It posseses the cultural context of the Russian avant-garde in the 1910's. A fusion of cubism and futurism with philosophical, psychological and mathematical concepts of the time. Entirely of its era and place, inspired by contemporary Russian figures such as Ouspensky and artistic ideas like Zaum, born of the brief flowering of Russian culture at the end of the tsars and before the communists cracked down. It has exactly as much social context as any other picture produced in the history of man. The fact that is has tried to elude its cultural context is as much a comment on the culture that produced it as anything else. Its visual vocabulary is set and defined by certain narrow philosophical ideas. To imagine that this picture, or others similiar to it, can magically escape such restraints is a conceit. Indeed, to argue that this picture has no cultural context, you would have to invoke the artists intent to have it escape such context and...well, lets not even go there.
About fine art:
I'm an art student, studying to be a commercial illustrator. I find it impossible not to divide the world of art up by its academic provinces: Fine art, graphics, illustration, textiles, etc. etc. Thus, when I say 'fine art' I mean the area of art covered by a fine art degree which is, in fact, pretty much art for arts sake, except that, of course, it is a medium for communication. A visual language. Your point about reflection and communication existing simultaneously is interesting, but I don't accept it quite, except that to say communication causes reflection. It's a reaction to outside stimuli as much as anything we do is (a mirror only reflects something when there is something to reflect, or something like that.) In that case, we can still say that art is a medium of communication. Most, if not all, art exists to make a statement about the world. Often, nowadays, that statement is merely about art, which is one reason I consider fine art practice in the modern sense to be somewhat self-serving and insular. Art has become something whose audience is primarily other artists and a cultural or intellectual elite who take an interest in the cerebral side of the whole affair. I (drunkenly btw) bought up the example of Michael Craig-Martins piece 'An Oak Tree', which (you probably already know this) is a glass of water accompanied by a piece of text in which the artist claims via a Q and A to have turned the glass of water in to an oak tree without changing its appearance. It's a rather clever piece. It made me chucke a bit and think about Kant. But to the man on the street it is, quite frankly, a pile of shit. It's more a philosophical thought experiment than art, the same with many other peices, Fountain being perhaps the most famous, though I love that for the sheer fucking audacity. Goodness, I'm waffling on. Anyway, my point was that whilst white on white may, in fact, be communicating something, it is not, despite the concept behind it, communicating it well and clearly. The reception of the message is dependent to a large extent on the recipients ability to understand it, or even understand that it is an attempt to communicate. If you were to see White on White outside the gallery, your first idea, I can assure you, would not be to consider it a profound piece of art. You need a certain mindset or level of knowledge to even understand that a black circle or a white square might be trying to communicate something. Give me a Hiroshige any day!
EDIT: Twatted up the quote tags.
Just because a piece was produced at a particular time and place does not mean it bears symbols or the representation of that time in place on itself. White on White was made by a Russian in the middle of the 20th century, but so what? Show it to anyone on the street and ask them the nationality and time period of the work. Now, take another more representational piece and show it to them, and see if there aren't more clues as to when and where the piece was made. Additionally, it is plain that its effort to break free from cultural boundaries does not reflect on the Russians, since Suprematism was a movement fairly removed from other Russian works of the period.
The artist's intent is not what makes White on White so removed. It is the image--what you see on the canvas. The goddamned paint. The color white and squares are not immediately identifiable with a specific culture!
The area of art covered by a fine art degree can be, by decision, music composition, theory, performance, performance art, fine art, graphic design and illustration, theatre, technical theatre, theatre theory, and any other wide diversity of subject that pertains to the arts. Even if you narrow your definition down to an Art History degree, which is immediately concerned with aesthetic trends and movements within historical art pieces, it takes about five minutes to demonstrate that the art it is concerned with goes far and beyond the bounds of art for art's sake, and even those few pieces--pieces made solely as "art"--are not inherently incomprehensible to the "common man." Plenty of fine art is made specifically for the common man.
It is true that much of the art in the present era comments about itself. This is because we live during Postmodernism, and that is the aim of the movement. Fortunately for you, since you detest it so, it doubtlessly coming to a close.
It's interesting you bring up Duchamp's Fountain. Largely the beginning of the Dadaist movement, it is "anti-art." Duchamp entered it into the Academy in order to break down the pretension of the time about what was considered art and what wasn't. For Duchamp, placed on its side the urinal became a new and pleasing form, detached form its previous hygienic significance.
And you might want to stop making generalizations about other people. I DO think White on White is a profound piece of art, and as long as any piece strikes me as emotionally powerful and aesthetically pleasing as that did, I will call it art, too.
Not that there isn't plenty of shit out there.
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I never said it wasn't art.
Also, are you from the states?
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I am indeed from the states. Why?
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Thought so. You organise your art education a tad different over there it would seem.
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I remember the first time i saw some of Rothko's work for the first time, in a retrospective while I was travelling in Spain a few years ago. Absolutely floored me. I mean, I thought his stuff was kind of cool looking at it in books/slides/etc, but to actually experience the work firsthand is a completely different thing. Completely overwhelming, all-consuming stuff. I mean, I haven?t studied "fine art" art in ages (In my 4th year of a graphic design/international studies degree) and was never much chop at history, but all that aside, seeing Rothko?s stuff in person completey changed the way I think about/look at non-representational art.
Too boozed up & tired to write more. Plus I?m on a German keyboard. There?s a y where the z should be and the punctuation is just impossible. Just wanted to add my 2c.
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Right on, salada. I don't know if it is still up, but there's a dim room full of Rothkos at the Tate that are AMAZING.
I'd be interested to know, KharBevNor, what the differences you see are. My brother studies Art History among other things in the UK and he doesn't like it too much.
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Well, for a start, here, fine art here is, as far as I'm aware (and I was planning to do it at BA stage for a month) to be a lot more narrow than what: you'd do a theatre studies or design for theatre degree or music performance or whatnot for most of those things you mentioned, but there is a certain amount of cross-over into other areas of traditional art and media (the most obvious being that fine-art encompasses things like sculpture, video art, performance art and, of course, installations and interventions). I'm reasonably certain you can't do a specific degree in, for example, performance art, though places like Glasgow offer a lot of mickey mouse degrees like 'environmental art' that probably cover that. Most British art education seems to take a quite firm basis from a Bauhaus-derived foundation course (try getting in to anywhere half decent without a foundation degree. Just about possible if you're picasso mark 2. Even then Brighton would probably have objections.) So it's quite well divided into the five 'key areas' of 3D, graphics and design, fine art, lens based media and textiles and fashion. Of course, as I said, you get a lot of crossover, but the degrees themselves tend to stay together in those sort of groups, as it were, apart from obvious exceptions like fashion illustration.
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generally i can appreciate pretty much anything. very abstract can and often is very very good and far more interesting than photo realistic still lifes. the only piece i can think of that's "abstract" that i don't appreciate is andy warhol's 'brillio pad' box. mainly b/c it's just that, an empty box of brillo pads, that he did nothing to. it's a box. in a display case. not a big fan.
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It's the context, man.
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Well, for a start, here, fine art here is, as far as I'm aware (and I was planning to do it at BA stage for a month) to be a lot more narrow than what: you'd do a theatre studies or design for theatre degree or music performance or whatnot for most of those things you mentioned, but there is a certain amount of cross-over into other areas of traditional art and media (the most obvious being that fine-art encompasses things like sculpture, video art, performance art and, of course, installations and interventions). I'm reasonably certain you can't do a specific degree in, for example, performance art, though places like Glasgow offer a lot of mickey mouse degrees like 'environmental art' that probably cover that. Most British art education seems to take a quite firm basis from a Bauhaus-derived foundation course (try getting in to anywhere half decent without a foundation degree. Just about possible if you're picasso mark 2. Even then Brighton would probably have objections.) So it's quite well divided into the five 'key areas' of 3D, graphics and design, fine art, lens based media and textiles and fashion. Of course, as I said, you get a lot of crossover, but the degrees themselves tend to stay together in those sort of groups, as it were, apart from obvious exceptions like fashion illustration.
i guess here you're either fine arts, design, or communication arts. fine arts is your 2D, 3D, and photography/electronic media. design is geared for the corporate world, like graphic, industrial, and fashion. communication is kind of a mix, where illustration, etc. falls. at the school i go to, i get designers in my fine arts studios quite a bit, but i don't know any fine arts people in design studios unless they plan on transferring to design. i don't know how it works elsewhere, but my school is so freaking competitive and full because of it, that we really can't do both. we don't even have communication arts at my college, which sucks, because i like illustration. our foundation courses are also different, though somewhat similar in context, like drawing, color, etc.
and i still say intent matters. to me.
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Wow. Okay, I'm jumping in a little late here, so bear with me.
I took three years of fine art, two more of design and colour theory. Not that any of that gives any more or less weight to my opinions, of course.
I think the thing about suprematism, abstraction, non-representation or most of the 20th century movements, is that by and large, they are very much about the context of the culture they were in, and of the time they were produced. Time becomes a context in and of itself. Think about something like Futurism. That was very much a product of Mussolini-era communist Italy. The fascination with speed and the automobile, with war and conquest and might. The era ends(well, the era blew itself to pieces)and while the art endures to this day, the context is perhaps slightly or grossely altered by the course of history. The same thing can be said for the Dadaists. Revolutionary for their time, and people still use their techniques, but their relevance has kind of been lost 60 years removed from Hitler(and that could be because new people might not get the context and those who do may prefer to forget about that era altogether).
Applying that concept to something like the abstraction or non-representation, the context of time matters because these things, in their time, had not been done before. Perhaps that appreciation of the inventiveness of it erodes in the later generations because we're used to it by now or have known it to always be there. While I do kind of wonder about whether the importance of it relies mainly upon the theory behind the styles or upon the art the era produced (as per Malevich's "White on White": did he really mean what he was getting at or did someone just hide all of his other paints that day?), there's not really much that can deny the fact that this was something new and it was and is best to not think of it in terms of emotions. That isn't the purpose of it. I do disagree though, that it's not a part of a specific culture. It is. Not a world culture, but an historical culture. I've seen people cry in front of Rothko paintings and feel nothing for a terrifcially bleak and sad Schiele landscape. To each thier own. I appreciate the simplicity to an extent, and certainly in Rothko's case, the richness of colours their blending, but ultimately it does little to move me. Representational or not, I really could care less why someone did something the way they did it. If I want to know the history behind any specific era or painting, I'll seek that out and that affords insight but not the artist's rationale behind it. I don't much care about that as I don't really want or feel it's good to have it explained to me. That reduces the work to a singular viewpoint, eliminating the viewer's own feelings and experiences from the process. It's not about sharing ideas then. It's about showing off.
And speaking of Warhol, the best thing I've ever heard about him is that he's the single most overrated and underrated artist. The Brillo box is just a take on Magritte's "Fountain", and yes, he did revolutionize art as a commodity, but the Romans were doing that with copies of Greek statues that had different head applied to them to suit the buyer centuries eariler.
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The funny thing about Warhol's Brillo Box and other works like it that he and his contemporaries produced is that the artists really did craft those; they aren't ready-mades but a reinterpretation of the concept of the ready made.
As for the other points that have been made, there's no point in talking unless you read the posts before you, ESPECIALLISMUSLISTLY ABOUT CONTEXT :wink:.
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quick question, if any of the earlier posters are still following this thread: where would you place sculpture in all this?
i ask because i just got back from a trip to bilbao (one last hurrah before i pack up my life in SW france and head back to aus) and they have a room of richard serra sculptures -- not at all representational or anything, made from huge sheets of 12' tall 2" thick steel.
i've always liked his stuff from photos and the like, but it basically comes back to what i'd mentioned before in this thread: one of the things you just have to see in person (and in this case, walk in/through/around) to even begin to wrap you head around it.
thoughts? representation/abstraction in artwork besides painting?
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i like that kind of stuff. interactive isn't quite the right word but it's all i can think of. basically i think the steel sheets in a very interesting concept in theory and even better if you actually see it, much like christo's arches in central park/umbrellas in the desert. naysayers be damned, it's ambitious and it's certainly art to me.
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there's something about sculptures like Christo's gates and umbrellas that brings it to a whole new level above things like white on white. i think maybe it's the size/volume of the installations and all of the planning that goes into it, plus the fact that it's temporary. i can't word how it's different exactly, but i really like Christo's work, as well as Serra.
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I think the basic aesthetic rules and principles apply to sculpture, too. As for needing to be there to really get the full effect, I think it is unfair to judge too harshly any art you haven't actually seen in person! A picture of a picture can't really communicate the real life object.
Christo is very cool. Did anyone see the Gates?
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i managed to go and see them, yeh. they were very cool. the best was seeing them from the distance through the trees as the sun caught the cloth. it was a really nice piece i thought.
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My ideas about art are summed up by a quote that is commonly attributed to Canadian philosopher, Marshall McLuhan:
"Art is anything you can get away with."
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I'm not that big a fan of abstract sculpture, except for the odd Anish Kapoor piece (especially the big ones: I saw Marsyas when it was up in the turbine hall at the Tate Modern and it impressed by its sheer scale and ambition) and Andy Goldsworthy, who is really just a whole different kettle of fish.
That said, I don't see quite what the point is about sculpture: 'art' comprises everything from installations, interventions, video art, sculpture, motion graphics, photography and typography to painting/drawing etc. Sculpture is just a form that's hard to reproduce.
Not that relevant to this thread, but I was recently drawing up a list of things I would really like to do in life, and number three was:
'Buy a Rothko painting, then put up a live web-feed of me meticulously overpainting it with a pre-raphaelite woodland scene. When it comes to court, I will say that I thought ?500,000 was a bit much for an old piece of canvas someone had tested their paint-rollers on.'
Rothko was, to coin a phrase, a fucking hack. And yes, I've seen his work in the gallery. A pretentious art theorist tricking the avant-garde in to thinking he was on to something, a talentless wanker whose works could be replicated by a chimpanzee. Pollock too.
To put this into context, I think Marcel Duchamp was a genius.
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I'm not that big a fan of abstract sculpture, except for the odd Anish Kapoor piece (especially the big ones: I saw Marsyas when it was up in the turbine hall at the Tate Modern and it impressed by its sheer scale and ambition) and Andy Goldsworthy, who is really just a whole different kettle of fish.
That said, I don't see quite what the point is about sculpture: 'art' comprises everything from installations, interventions, video art, sculpture, motion graphics, photography and typography to painting/drawing etc. Sculpture is just a form that's hard to reproduce.
Not that relevant to this thread, but I was recently drawing up a list of things I would really like to do in life, and number three was:
'Buy a Rothko painting, then put up a live web-feed of me meticulously overpainting it with a pre-raphaelite woodland scene. When it comes to court, I will say that I thought ?500,000 was a bit much for an old piece of canvas someone had tested their paint-rollers on.'
Rothko was, to coin a phrase, a fucking hack. And yes, I've seen his work in the gallery. A pretentious art theorist tricking the avant-garde in to thinking he was on to something, a talentless wanker whose works could be replicated by a chimpanzee. Pollock too.
To put this into context, I think Marcel Duchamp was a genius.
That's a peculiar perspective. I think Rothko and his contemporaries certainly had a lot more going for them than the dullness of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.
Something about ready-mades catches your eye but careful painting doesn't? Please explain.
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I've never been a big fan of abstract work, at least not until lately when I've become more enamored with the quality of the painting than with the subject. That being said, i do respect abstract art as an art form, and having tried my hand at abstract painting myself, realize the amount of time and emotion and symbolism that can go into those types of pieces. I've also found that of late, I'm drawn more and more to the abstract pieces when I visit museums. I can truthfully say, that, at least for me, abstract works require more time, thought, energy, and emotional involvement than regular paintings. I am of the opinion that abstract works are for the artist, and society isn't necessarily supposed to understand it. That being said....I can't stand Rothko.
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idk, duchamp and i don't get along. i'm not a huge fan really...
that being said i think rothko is pretty interesting. i can see your complaint with him but i don't really agree with it. same with pollock, whom i like quite a lot. i tend to prefer more abstract paintings to begin with though. i saw a show at the guggenheim on spanish art and most of it was very traditional portraits by all the "greats" and most of them bored me to tears. the only part of the show i actually enjoyed was picasso's work (luckily there was a lot of it). when i was in italy we saw quite a lot of rather uninteresting "masterpieces." some of them i loved, some of them in the many museums i went to were just....meh. when it comes to painting i like the more out there work to the more traditional.
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I like Duchamp a lot, and Joseph Cornell is one of my favorite artists of the moment.
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TURNER!!!
(http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/turner/i/deluge.jpg)
(http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RAturnSt.jpg)
frickin seascapes, man!!
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TURNER!!!
I love Turner.
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Andy Goldsworthy
I love Goldsworthy. Although would Rachel Whiteread fall under the "modern abstract sculptor" label? I like a lot of her work.
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That's a peculiar perspective. I think Rothko and his contemporaries certainly had a lot more going for them than the dullness of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.
Something about ready-mades catches your eye but careful painting doesn't? Please explain.
I appreciate the intellectual/theoretical element of Dada and Surrealism. 'Fountain' was a challenge to the entirety of art that chimes with my personal intellectual position that all things that are designed are art. Duchamps paintings are also spectacular. They are abstract, but alive with motion and power. Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 is one of my top ten favourite paintings. In Rothko I see nothing. Colour exercises blown up and backed up by pretentious drivel, saying nothing, symbolising nothing, communicating on the same level as wallpaper. Pollock works on some level as an expression of emotion, but I find it impossible to appreciate his artistry, so I don't.
Also, Turner is a genius. Rain, Steam and Speed, the second of the paintings above, is another definite entry in my top 10. Don't see how he relates to abstraction though, he was a pure romantic.
As for careful painting in Rothko vs. Pre-raphaelites, are you somehow expecting me to think that this:
(http://twebzine.no.sapo.pt/rothko.jpg)
Is somehow a more careful and skillful painting than this:
(http://www.its.caltech.edu/~suvir/favourites/images/paintings/waterhouse.lady-of-shalott.jpg)
(incidentally another of my favourites).
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that second one is gorgeous. who's the painter?
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It's 'The Lady of Shalott' by John William Waterhouse.
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That's a peculiar perspective. I think Rothko and his contemporaries certainly had a lot more going for them than the dullness of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.
Something about ready-mades catches your eye but careful painting doesn't? Please explain.
I appreciate the intellectual/theoretical element of Dada and Surrealism. 'Fountain' was a challenge to the entirety of art that chimes with my personal intellectual position that all things that are designed are art. Duchamps paintings are also spectacular. They are abstract, but alive with motion and power. Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 is one of my top ten favourite paintings. In Rothko I see nothing. Colour exercises blown up and backed up by pretentious drivel, saying nothing, symbolising nothing, communicating on the same level as wallpaper. Pollock works on some level as an expression of emotion, but I find it impossible to appreciate his artistry, so I don't.
Also, Turner is a genius. Rain, Steam and Speed, the second of the paintings above, is another definite entry in my top 10. Don't see how he relates to abstraction though, he was a pure romantic.
As for careful painting in Rothko vs. Pre-raphaelites, are you somehow expecting me to think that this:
Is somehow a more careful and skillful painting than this:
(incidentally another of my favourites).
Essentially, yes. I personally believe Rothko is the better painter.
Here is the argument I gave my friend to take or leave when he declared Rothko a hack at the Tate Modern. Hanging there are six or eight canvases of mostly red tone not unlike the one pictured in your post. They are isolated in their own room and, compared with the rest of the gallery, fairly dimly lit.
They were given to the Tate after they were commissioned for a restaurant (commissioned in the sense that they asked Rothko to paint them paintings, not that they specified subject matter) and not used for whatever reason. Essentially, they WERE wanted as wallpaper. What makes them powerful, however, is the immediate gutteral response to that vivid color that the work elicits in the viewer. (See Kandinsky's essay "On Color" for related discussion.) The viewer need not know why they were painted, but merely stand in front of them to be emotionally moved as I was by their power.
In Rothko's work there is contemplation and fear. The carefully chosen proportions and subtle differences of hue provide the eye with an interesting color landscape so large that when one stands in front of it, the sheer size and emotion of the piece can, for example, make people so visibly uncomfortable that they leave the room. Rothko, in his carefully planned and executed art, has power.
The pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, on the other hand, bores me because their ideal, the rejection of mannerist technique and academic foolishness of the English Academy, resulted in fundamentally sterile paintings. They do not successfully cover any ground not explored in greater detail and competency by previous artists. For an intelligent response to mannerism and such overblown study of the figure, look to Caravaggio and the Caravaggisti, who formed an intelligent response more than two centuries earlier.
Oh, and Nude Descending a Staircase is awesome.
Edited for grammar and spelling.
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Essentially, yes. I personally believe Rothko is the better painter.
Here is the argument I gave my friend to take or leave when he declared Rothko a hack at the Tate Modern. Hanging there are six or eight canvases of mostly red tone not unlike the one pictured in your post. They are isolated in their own room and, compared with the rest of the gallery, fairly dimly lit.
They were given to the Tate after they were commissioned for a restaurant (commissioned in the sense that they asked Rothko to paint them paintings, not that they specified subject matter) and not used for whatever reason. Essentially, they WERE wanted as wallpaper. What makes them powerful, however, is the immediate gutteral response to that vivid color that the work elicits in the viewer. (See Kandinsky's essay "On Color" for related discussion.) The viewer need not know why they were painted, but merely stand in front of them to be emotionally moved as I was by their power.
In Rothko's work there is contemplation and fear. The carefully chosen proportions and subtle differences of hue provide the eye with an interesting color landscape so large that when one stands in front of it, the sheer size and emotion of the piece can, for example, make people so visibly uncomfortable that they leave the room. Rothko, in his carefully planned and executed art, has power.
Hey, I'm a British art student. I've seen Rothkos work in the tate modern, and examined it quite well. My A-Level art teacher was fucking obsessed with Rothko and Kandinsky. Your argument contains nothing convincing at all. Standing in front of one, I can see no evidence that Rothkos work contains any intellectual depth beyond a knowledge of colour theory and colours emotional impact that would be up to par with any of my contemporaries on my course.
However, I cannot help but be dazzled by the sheer care and skill of the pre-raphaelites. The resulting work is of such overwhelming quality that, though I don't agree really with any of the movements precepts, the result is astounding. I don't see how you can even compare such meticulous and beautiful work with Rothko.
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i wouldn't compare them nor would i say one is "better" than the other. both are executed well in their relative styles. i just happen to like the pre-Raphelite one much much more. (that doesn't mean i don't like Rothko though. i've also seen one in person, and it was a good experience.)
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Hey, I'm a British art student. I've seen Rothkos work in the tate modern, and examined it quite well. My A-Level art teacher was fucking obsessed with Rothko and Kandinsky. Your argument contains nothing convincing at all. Standing in front of one, I can see no evidence that Rothkos work contains any intellectual depth beyond a knowledge of colour theory and colours emotional impact that would be up to par with any of my contemporaries on my course.
However, I cannot help but be dazzled by the sheer care and skill of the pre-raphaelites. The resulting work is of such overwhelming quality that, though I don't agree really with any of the movements precepts, the result is astounding. I don't see how you can even compare such meticulous and beautiful work with Rothko.
I'm not asking you to find my argument convincing. I am simply stating that while the pretty lady in the boat with the plants is sort of neat in the sense that the artist has demonstrated his ability to paint such a thing, he has painted a boring picture.
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Honestly the problem I have with most of the non-objective contemporary art is the need for context. These pieces in general have greater difficulty in standing alone. If you look at Brancusi sculptures e.g. bird in flight(comma) although the piece is most definitly minimalist i also stands alone without context as brilliant. Many of these pieces are only really comprehensible to somebody who already knows or understands the artist and I believe that in the long term (e.g. fifty years from now) so much of the context will be lost that these pieces will lose much of their impact. For the reasons of longevity I believe that art in order to be truly great needs to be able to stand independent from explanation as well as from the era of its creation and its creator.
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Honestly the problem I have with most of the non-objective contemporary art is the need for context. These pieces in general have greater difficulty in standing alone. If you look at Brancusi sculptures e.g. bird in flight(comma) although the piece is most definitly minimalist i also stands alone without context as brilliant. Many of these pieces are only really comprehensible to somebody who already knows or understands the artist and I believe that in the long term (e.g. fifty years from now) so much of the context will be lost that these pieces will lose much of their impact. For the reasons of longevity I believe that art in order to be truly great needs to be able to stand independent from explanation as well as from the era of its creation and its creator.
As I've said before, if you're not going to read what's already been said in this thread, why bother posting? Good "abstract" or "modern" art (indeed, the art regarded as "famous") needs no context. Art is and always will be standalone.
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I'm not asking you to find my argument convincing. I am simply stating that while the pretty lady in the boat with the plants is sort of neat in the sense that the artist has demonstrated his ability to paint such a thing, he has painted a boring picture.
Except he hasn't. He's painted a picture which glows with a heavenly luminosity and is alive with depth and emotional meaning. Even if you don't know the poem, the picture is probably even better. Why is the woman in the boat, where is the boat, what is she looking at, what is she feeling? It's entirely real and yet entirely unreal at the same time, the kind of thing an imaginative mind can get lost in for hours.
I do not believe that Rothko is good, or that Rothko can effectively stand alone. Can you please quote me one example of anyone you know who likes Rothko who does not have a good knowledge of the arts? Most, if not all the people I know who have ever expressed their love of Rothko to me have been artists, art lecturers, art students or art connoisseurs. Rothko has no appeal outside the insular circle of the arts, a criticism I have of a large number of modern artists. Rothko and Pollock are jokes to the large masses of people. Fucking Banksy is a better artist than Rothko.
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Honestly the problem I have with most of the non-objective contemporary art is the need for context. These pieces in general have greater difficulty in standing alone. If you look at Brancusi sculptures e.g. bird in flight(comma) although the piece is most definitly minimalist i also stands alone without context as brilliant. Many of these pieces are only really comprehensible to somebody who already knows or understands the artist and I believe that in the long term (e.g. fifty years from now) so much of the context will be lost that these pieces will lose much of their impact. For the reasons of longevity I believe that art in order to be truly great needs to be able to stand independent from explanation as well as from the era of its creation and its creator.
As I've said before, if you're not going to read what's already been said in this thread, why bother posting? Good "abstract" or "modern" art (indeed, the art regarded as "famous") needs no context. Art is and always will be standalone.
because he felt he had something to add? no offense, but anyone can post if he/she feels like it, whether you think he/she should or not.
and what khar said is right. i have many friends who aren't all that artistic and they don't get or like rothko. even a lot of the art students i know don't like a lot of abstract work like that. i like his color, but other than that, he's not my cup of tea. i'm not going as far as khar's views, but there are other things i'd honestly rather look at. i like rothko's color, but others use color as well, such as kandinsky, van gogh, monet, as well as many contemporary artists who produce works that i find much more interesting to look at than rothko. (yes, i saw a rothko in person, but the one experience was enough. i've seen one. it was big and colorful. but i can't sit in front of it for hours like i can one of Monet's water lily paintings.)
just because you think Lady is "boring" doesn't mean it is. if you want something that's boring, go to the st. louis art museum. there's a bunch of steel plates on the floor. boring.
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Except he hasn't. He's painted a picture which glows with a heavenly luminosity and is alive with depth and emotional meaning. Even if you don't know the poem, the picture is probably even better. Why is the woman in the boat, where is the boat, what is she looking at, what is she feeling? It's entirely real and yet entirely unreal at the same time, the kind of thing an imaginative mind can get lost in for hours.
I do not believe that Rothko is good, or that Rothko can effectively stand alone. Can you please quote me one example of anyone you know who likes Rothko who does not have a good knowledge of the arts? Most, if not all the people I know who have ever expressed their love of Rothko to me have been artists, art lecturers, art students or art connoisseurs. Rothko has no appeal outside the insular circle of the arts, a criticism I have of a large number of modern artists. Rothko and Pollock are jokes to the large masses of people. Fucking Banksy is a better artist than Rothko.
I present two possibilities. Firstly, perhaps those people inclined to learn more about the arts are those with the depth of feeling and emotion necessary to enjoy a Rothko. Secondly, maybe your strictly scientific method of determining what sorts of people like and don't like Rothko is flawed.
I think it's fair to point out I haven't accused anyone of being uncultured or dim for not enjoying Rothko, but maybe the term "hack" is a little presumptuous. Isn't it?
Dear iamyourpirate,
Of course one man saying something is boring does not absolutely make it so, but I am allowed to express my opinion, right? Additionally, thought I've never been to St. Louis, I can imagine at least two configurations of steel plates that would make an interesting art piece. Now, painters you should check out! They smear oil and minerals on cloth and call it art!
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I think it's fair to point out I haven't accused anyone of being uncultured or dim for not enjoying Rothko,
Firstly, perhaps those people inclined to learn more about the arts are those with the depth of feeling and emotion necessary to enjoy a Rothko.
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What you're basically saying is, that art is a product produced by and for a cultural elite and if you don't get it then you've got no soul.
EH URRRRR.
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What you're basically saying is, that art is a product produced by and for a cultural elite and if you don't get it then you've got no soul.
EH URRRRR.
There's a basic misconception going on here. In the modern age, artists produce artwork as a mode of personal expression. No one is painting a secrete code that disperses messages to a select few. It's so tempting to whip out the "Well, maybe you just don't understand." bullshit because it's too difficult to explain how breaking from centuries of established tradition doesn't make someone a poser.
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As I've made clear, I don't think that breaking from established tradition is in any way bad. I just think the way Rothko and most other abstract expressionists (and the fucking suprematist mob) broke from it was, basically, pretty crap. Maybe interesting once or twice, definitely not something to base a career or movement on. I've also said that perhaps the fact that I'm an illustrator colours my perceptions as I'am constantly striving to create art that communicates. Self expression is all fine and dandy, but it doesn't always produce results worth looking twice at. Tracey Emin anyone?
But, I'd also like to say, that even though I'm an anarchist, I don't believe that traditions should be avoided just because they're traditions. You lose centuries of technique and visual vocabulary that way. Rothko was left with a visual vocabulary that consisted entirely of shades of colour and rectangles. Sorry if that doesn't thrill me. Abstract work can get me, I must say, but the necessary element missing from Rothko is movement. Rothko looks and feels like a still-life of the inside of a dupont colour mixing machine.
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I think good artists defy tradition out of necessity, and even when this defiance results in pictures that don't use the same vocabulary as old pictures, the standards have not been lost. Art history is full of men and women who have decided specific methods do not fit within the ideological or emotional framework they seek to operate in, but the things they discard naturally resurface in new and interesting ways later.
The huge body of work the public typically decries--everything from Suprematism to Constructivism to Post-Modernism blah blah blah--came about because these people's ideas and feelings were ineffable with the visual language that the artists who came before them gave them.
However, I've said before that no one needs to enjoy looking at these things. It is enough that some of us do for that work to be declared "art".
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Also, I was never arguing that any of it wasn't art. I was just saying bad art. My interpretation of art is liberal enough to include cooking, and the novelty Simpsons mug I'm drinking my coffee out of. I define art as, roughly, any object which has had someone direct care in to its design or manufacture. A coca cola bottle is as much art as the Mona Lisa in my opinion. What I'm talking about is quality of art, which is a whole different kettle of fish.
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The phenomenon of considering a huge variety of made objects "art" is an odd one. Don't you find that this both devalues ready-mades and causes the term "art" to lose meaning? The broader the definition, the less distinct art is from anything else.
Isn't the landscape art? Language?
I hope not. There wouldn't be anything special about it, then.
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How could the landscape be art? Unless human care was invested in it, in which case yes. Of course landscaping and gardening are art. Language is an evolving system of classification, it's use is art. Brick-laying is art, boat-building is art, computer programming is art, brewing beer is art. At least, they are when they are done with care, when a craftsman or designer has invested himself into his work, that is art. Art is something that exists in all things of quality, art is true quality, ingenuity, imagination, skill, of any sort. This is widely acknowledged. Consider how we divide learning in to the arts and the sciences? Unfortunately, I haven't got a copy of the OED with me here right now, but these definitions of art from dictionary.com are relevant:
7. the principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning: the art of baking; the art of selling.
8. the craft or trade using these principles or methods.
9. skill in conducting any human activity: a master at the art of conversation.
12. skilled workmanship, execution, or agency, as distinguished from nature.
Artistry isn't just something purely possesed by painting, drawing, sculpture and so forth, but by all forms of human creativity in which the creator invests something of their own subjective vision in the objective created..
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arguing about this sort of thing generally just riles me a lot, so i usually don't bother. it's more or less on par with arguments about politics, religion, and all that: get a couple of people who know their shit quite well but have different views on what's good or worthwhile or right in art (or politics, or whatever), and even after hours/pages of arguments, neither of them are going to have convinced the other of anything because they are both pursuing different arguments that when you pull them apart, don't really have any intersecting points.
in short:
1. pre-raphaelites bore me to tears but are technically excellent.
2. rothko's use of colour to communicate on a primal/emotional level is incredible, and i don't think it needs any background knowledge to be understood, just to be seen in person.
3. art is whatever you want it to be. except stuff with a primarily functional purpose like architecture or typography, which are architecture or typography first, then art second. invoking tiny dictionary definitions in the face of a complicated and ongoing philosophical/artistic question is probably not a terribly good idea. that said, the landscape is not art.
i'm hungry and distracted. might get some lunch. if i write any more i'll get dragged into this and i'm really not a fan of long, drawn-out internet arguments. or long, drawn-out real-life arguments, for that matter. but at least with that kind you're usually at the pub with beer and music instead of at home in front of a screen.
anyway! good day(s) to you all. this is all i've got for this thread, but i might continue to read it.
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Dear iamyourpirate,
Of course one man saying something is boring does not absolutely make it so, but I am allowed to express my opinion, right? Additionally, thought I've never been to St. Louis, I can imagine at least two configurations of steel plates that would make an interesting art piece. Now, painters you should check out! They smear oil and minerals on cloth and call it art!
i didn't say you weren't. and the plates were arranged in a line across the floor. not that interesting. yes, painting is art. but i prefer prints, installations, sculptures in various mediums, drawings, and whatnot to painting. (maybe because so many people assume when someone says that they are an artist, they are automatically a painter. and painting isn't really my thing. printmaking is where it's at.)
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3. art is whatever you want it to be. except stuff with a primarily functional purpose like architecture or typography, which are architecture or typography first, then art second. invoking tiny dictionary definitions in the face of a complicated and ongoing philosophical/artistic question is probably not a terribly good idea. that said, the landscape is not art.
Go tell a graphics designer that typography isn't art.
Hell, go tell an architect that architecture isn't art.
They probably wouldn't teach them in art colleges otherwise.
I'm not invoking 'tiny dictionary definitions' by the way, I'm laying out a seemingly quite radically broad philosophical definition of art, then pointing out that we use the word art to refer to such things anyway, so in fact such concepts are already part of our semantics, we just create a false partition between fine art and art in general. Functionality has absolutely NOTHING to do with defining art (otherwise ShedBoatShed and Unmade Bed wouldn't have both won Turner Prizes). As I've said with Rothko, all I can do on such a subjective matter is to speak from experience, and say I felt fuck all when I saw his works in the gallery, and that I have met no one to my knowledge who enjoyed his work who wasn't very knowledgeable in the arts. To me, his work doesn't represent a very high degree of quality of ideas, execution or effect.
I loooove printmaking. I'm going to waste a week on it during the time for my self-negotiated brief, even if it has nothing to do with the final outcome.
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I think what's relevant here is the field of "Fine Art."
We all agree on something! I am a printmaker and (obviously) love it.
Architecture is first and foremost art. For example, the word for it in German is "Baukunst," or "build-art."
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Go printmaking! Bringing people together since...um...today.
Sorry, I'll leave this highly intellectual debate now. Have a nice day.
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WOO! feel the love! this made my day somewhat brighter.
architecture is totally an artform. this is why the college i'm in had a famous architect design our building. (DAAP/Aronoff building by Peter Eisenman.) the way i look at it, architecture is large scale sculpture that happens to be functional. there's a lot of different aesthetics that go into making buildings interesting, so i would say it's funcional art, but it's still an art. typography is on the same level. graphic designers wouldn't appreciate it being called otherwise.
it's very odd at the college i go to, designers can take our art studios, but we can't take their design studios. i really wish i could get into a typography class, but the only ones i could get into are in the summer and summer classes tend to be not that good for other programs, supposedly. (art summer classes are easier because they tend to be taught by grad students vs. professors and it's summer and people don't care as much.)
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When it comes to abstract, I tend to like it. I am not one of those people who try to put meaning into abstracts, but i do find them nice to look at. I (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v654/a58hobbit/drawings/IMG_0087.jpg) draw (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v654/a58hobbit/drawings/sleep.jpg) abstracts. (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v654/a58hobbit/drawings/abstract.jpg) I do not claim to know anything about art, but I do know what I like.
I did find it odd that I saw an abstract painting in the landscape section of the special art exhibit I went to last year... then again the choices were between landscape, still life, and portrait. I guess it fit in with landscape better than the other two.
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there's a famous piece featurin a white box painted on a white canvas, called sublime.
As a literary commentary it's completely accurate. It's the unseen technique.
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Here's the great thing about abstraction:
While a traditional art piece may be technically perfect, often times it ignores the concepts of balance and composition in favor of merely photocopying real art. Once you strip away the "oooh and aah" of the technical skill of many art pieces, you will be left with, in essence, a horrible composition. This is not to say that ALL traditional art has awful composition, there are many masterpieces which have been created with careful attention towards concept and space. That's why they're masterpieces. But now, with many traditional artists merely replicating the same landscapes, flowers, and portraits that have been done a thousand times before, much current traditional art is hardly unique or conceptually interesting. With traditional art, one is (often) merely copying an object with hopes of, essentially, photocopying life onto a 2D plane. Abstract art must take these objects, actions, feelings, or thoughts, and communicate them by not just reproduction, but by EXPANDING upon the ideas.
Some abstract art is crap, and is just some guy drawing squares.
But some of it does go above and beyond and create a work which pulls from the viewer not just admiration for the technical skill or time invested, but an emotional (or sometimes, visceral) reaction.
Okay, so that's my two cents.
For one who may ask, or be all like "hurr hurr you only say these things because you can't draw hurr", I do both traditional AND abstract art, and either can be crappy or wonderful.
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The only thing I like about Rothko is all the fuss he's caused/causing.
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Here's the great thing about abstraction:
While a traditional art piece may be technically perfect, often times it ignores the concepts of balance and composition in favor of merely photocopying real art. Once you strip away the "oooh and aah" of the technical skill of many art pieces, you will be left with, in essence, a horrible composition. This is not to say that ALL traditional art has awful composition, there are many masterpieces which have been created with careful attention towards concept and space. That's why they're masterpieces. But now, with many traditional artists merely replicating the same landscapes, flowers, and portraits that have been done a thousand times before, much current traditional art is hardly unique or conceptually interesting. With traditional art, one is (often) merely copying an object with hopes of, essentially, photocopying life onto a 2D plane. Abstract art must take these objects, actions, feelings, or thoughts, and communicate them by not just reproduction, but by EXPANDING upon the ideas.
Some abstract art is crap, and is just some guy drawing squares.
But some of it does go above and beyond and create a work which pulls from the viewer not just admiration for the technical skill or time invested, but an emotional (or sometimes, visceral) reaction.
Okay, so that's my two cents.
For one who may ask, or be all like "hurr hurr you only say these things because you can't draw hurr", I do both traditional AND abstract art, and either can be crappy or wonderful.
I think the instances in which composition was sacrificed for the sake of realism are few and far between since composition is one of the most fundamental concerns of art. For instance, take the Mannerists, who sought to display their viruousity by painting careful compositions of the human form.
That is not to say that bad traditional art does not exist. Of course it does.
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I was in the MN Institute of Art a couple weeks ago looking at the fourth floor. Not the parque, we just walked the fourth floor. And there was a Dutch still life with all the food being slightly rotten. After seeing a dozen bowls of fruit it was refreshing.
I am terrible with names, which is hardly an excuse, but I was intrigued by the aluminum block they also had with the red tube set into the top of it.
It did not evoke an emotional response from me, but what it did do was make me think about the definition of art. Is it a diliberate manipulation of materials? Or is it the expression of something more specific. I love how pregnant Lichtenstein's panels are, and how Calder simplified forms with wire.
Krog's work always seemed to have a bit of anger in them, and Munch's work dark. What annoys me is that reproductions of Munch usually are cropped. The Scream is supposed to have a red piece of wood attached to the side of the canvas. My point might better be, the scale of paintings also effects the affect. I don't like Mattice's The Dance, but standing under it is very different from seeing it in a textbook. It seems someone or other usually puts some editorial twist on the work when it is photographed and reprinted.
Off the top of my head, wasn't it Aristotle that discussed the proper aestetic distance for appreciating art...
I agree with Kelema about technicality not making something great. The Gonzaga Cameo comes to mind. A piece the size of a salad plate, carved in three layers from Sardonyx, it is by far the most amazing cameo the world will ever see. It has refereces to greek culture, it has a distinct political intent, but... I wouldn't say it is attractive. I appreciate the quality of the person who produced it, but ... Its a cameo. My mind just friezes.
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Interesting. Art can be many things.
By the way, "Den Mann ist was er isst." is kind of nonsensical. Your first article should be in the nominative case: "Der Mann ist was er isst."