costello

I do respect your love of art Mr Mephisto, it rivals my love of music. therefore, because i have no knowledge of visual art, i will make my arguement using music as my example. if i create a piece of music, i believe it to be a representation of myself. i dont think people who hear it need to listen to my other composistions to understand what my whole motive for making music is.

it must be the same with visual art. and as far as this art goes, i hate it. its just my opinion. no big deal. in fact, i think its so bad that no arguement can make me think otherwise or find any significance in it. the man mixed some colors together to make one color and put it on a canvas. i think that is, for lack of a better word, lame. if that was his intent then great. although i cant see this man (or any artist) getting satisfaction out of people not liking his work.

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"They don't even know what it is to be a fan. Y'know? To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts."

-Almost Famous

Mephisto2

Well said and duly noted.

But it's still "art", if you will! :-)

Personally, I can't stand heavy metal ("thrash metal") or some of the "ghetto" rap music you hear. I don't like a lot of the R&B that seems to clog the charts these days either.

My preference? I would prefer to sit down and listen to a Miles Davis record, or perhaps something by Chopin. Quite a difference from Regurgitator as you can see.

But I don't say "That's not music!".

Mr Mephisto

Jam

but that song isnt just one note... prolonged.. ive never heard a song like that... it would be dead air... not music... or a system test

kurty[B]

I find this a piece of art. I wouldn't call it a "work" of art, but it's a piece. Call me nutty, but I tend to find beauty in almost everything from the veins of a leaf to an empty evening lit street. I'd be interested to see the piece in person, with something like this I would hope that if you got up close and personal with it you'd noticed slightly different textures, maybe even brush strokes.

That's where I think the real art would lie. How did the piece come to life, sometimes if you watch how the strokes of a painting unfold, even a simple painting like this, you get to delve a little into the mind of the creator. Dunno, call me a fucking nut, but that's what I find interesting about people's art, get a fun reflection of their personality, and possibly even get to ponder things for yourself too.

The fact that people have to ask if it's art or not makes it art to me. I would never buy a blue canvas, or even paint one and put it in my home. I'd rather just paint the whole wall. But then again, I'm a nut with a mutlishaded room and a painting of the crab nebula on my ceiling (was a pain in the ass to do, but worth it).

Holo

I have yet to hear a successful musician that made an entire song with a single note. Even three chords can be used to convey something. One note cannot in my opinion unless your point is "le vide" .I know you were using it as an example, but I don't think most 5 year olds could play a three chord song in correct time, but any child with hands can take electric blue and cover a canvas with it. Any child under supervision could set a canvas on fire. I guess I just expect more from visual art than gimmicks. Is that elitist? Maybe so, but it's my belief on this subject.

Gotta go now. I'm a little broke this week and I'm gonna piss in a jar and stick a crucifix in it to make some cash. Gotta practice my pretentiousness to appear genuine tho.

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I happen to like the words "fuck", "cock", "pussy", "tits", "cunt", "twat", "shit" and even "bitch". As long as I am not using them to describe you, don't go telling me whether or not I can/should use them...that is, if you want me to continue refraining from using them to describe you. ~Prince

Mephisto2

LOL

Mr Mephisto

supafly

I don't see this as art. Everyone could make this.

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Thumbs up

arael

It is art. in fact i love his work. and don't even get me started on Pollock. Besides MC Escher, i think Pollock, to me, is the most artistically and mathmatically inspiring artist. Pollock was able to create fractal like image and share his perspection of the world with us. Oh well, i'm going off topics. But i do believe it is art

Mephisto2

I'm glad someone agrees with me arael!

Mr Mephisto

MacGnG

sure enough

greytone

"What is art?" is a question that seems to keep recurring here.

On one level, it is simply a semantic question. The meaning of a word is determined by its usage. Therefore, over time time, we can be a part of deciding what art is.

I like to doodle with shapes and designs. They are not art, but they could be studies for art if I ever took the next step. In my mind, this is an example of a study. The artist "experimented" with this color of his; but he did not make the effort to turn it into art.

I would prefer to call this "design." The blue canvas might look great in a number of settings. Imagine a public room in a modern house with high ceilings and large windows with while walls and furniture with a few primary colors, or maybe just black. This painting would really stand out. Of course it would be better if you had three of them.

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I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing.
Robert A Heinlein in "They Do It With Mirrors"

Tophat665

I don't know. I would say there's a mass of people who view Nirvana as crap. So that doesn't make you elitist, just a little silly.

If you like it, it's good for you. That's the bottom line. (I am almost entirely kidding in the previous paragraph. The almost is the hangover from people comparing Cobain to Hendrix simply because he made music and died young.)

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Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Soggybagel

Poop SEX IS ART!

empu

Modern classical composer John Cage (1912-1992) is perhaps most famous for a piece entitled 4'33" which consists of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence (or, perhaps more accurately, the absence of intentional musical sound.) It is a very interesting musical analogue to the subject of this thread.

Fearless_Hyena

after thinking about this for a while, it occurred to me that maybe we've been talking about (at least) two different kinds of art -- art which is stunning to the senses (like great visual art), and art that's stunning to the mind. does anyone follow me?

you can look at a painting, and just be amazed at the art in it's form. or listen to a tune and think wow that's incredible. or you could consider the blue painting, or listen to 4'33", and think about the effect it has on its audience. while all good art in any form usually has a profound effect on its audience anyway, it seems to me that there's a kind of art that focuses more on the audience, than the actual work of art itself...

ARTelevision

right, Klein's art is essentially conceptual...

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sn00py

Are those dead frogs being used as stamps???

haha... that is original. and funny. awesome.

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Wheeeeeeee!

Mephisto2

I think you have a great point. One that I have been struggling to communicate, but that you have described perfectly.

Art does not have to be just "nice pictures" (a la Rembrandt, Whistler, David etc), or even just "impressionistic" (a la Monet, Degas, Pissaro etc).

What about the abstract impressionist art of Pollack? Surely that does not constitute "bad art", does it?

Mr Mephisto

phaedrus

The only art involved with that work of "art" was the con job by the "artist" in convincing the art community that pice of blue was art. It is lame, boring, meaningless, etc....

Mephisto2

Have you read the entire thread?

If you have, and you still think Klein's work is a "con", let me ask you the following questions.


Do you consider this to be art?


Marcel Duchamp. Fresh Widow. 1920. Miniature window: wood painted blue and eight rectangles of polished leather. 77.5 x 45 cm on a wooden board, 1.9 x 63.3 x 10.2 cm. The Museum of Modern Arts, New York, NY, USA.


What about this?


Jackson Pollack. Cathedral. 1947: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, USA.


Perhaps you also consider this a con?


Pablo Picasso. Still life with a pidgeon. 1941. Oil on canvas. Not sure of collection


The whole point here is that should be considered in its context, not simply the paint on the canvas. If that were not the case, artists like Pollack, Picasso, Mastisse, Kandinski, Milo etc would be thought of as simple "scribblers".

One has to consider what the artist is trying to say, what they want to communicate, the medium in which they work etc.

Some art may not appeal. Indeed, I don't like a lot of modern art myself (Damien Hirst is a good example), but that doesn't mean the artist is a con-man.

I don't suppose I will convince you though. :-)


Mr Mephisto

phaedrus

I supposed there are countless ways to examine art. For me there are two that matter. The first is on it's own merits, the second is the context in which it was created.

A cave man's paintings when compared to more sophisticated art (say a Rembrandt), would not so much be art on its own merits? But it is art in the context in which it was created. It was revolutionary. A major progression if you will. But would it be art if a modern (time, not style) artist were to go into a cave and paint a crude cow? My answer is no, yours might be yes. Art is always subjective.

So I look at that piece of blue. And I ask my self is it art on its own merits? I answer, no, it is just blue, a color test at best. Is it art based on the context of the time? No. It was not revolutionary. It was not that original. Perhaps the artist was trying to challenge our notion of art. Perhaps he was protesting war. Who knows, it could mean anything because it says nothing. We want it to have meaning, but it says nothing. So we can accept what the critic or artist say it means or we can stubbornly insist is means nothing because it says nothing. I am stubborn. It means nothing, it says nothing. It is neither pretty nor did it require great skill to make. It is a fraud.

Of course, art is always subjective. To me it is a fraud, to that museum's curator, it is art.

Correct. Nor will I convince you.

Mephisto2

A particulary vibrant and ultra-marine. One that took years to develop and was considered so unique that a patend was granted.

I would contest both of these statements. It was revoluntionary. The movement itself was revolutionary.

EXACTLY! I refer you to the web-pages I mentioned above. I even quoted the artist himself.

Perhaps to you. But it does "talk" to me. I like it. I don't think it's a masterpiece, but I appreciate it. I like the colour (which our monitors do not do credit). I like the "concept".

Well, I don't mean to be unnecessarily argumentative, but you're actually wrong. It took significant time and effort to create. It does say something - challenging contemporaeous attitudes toward art, colour and content - and it did require skill.

:-) Indeed.

Actually, I can understand your position. It's just that I disagree. But I enjoy the debate none the less! \

Mr Mephisto

phaedrus

I did not know you could get a patent for a color. That seems odd to me. Is this something that is normally done by paint companies? Is the color protected or just the method of making that exact color?
Time and effort do not equal skill, and skill at mixing colors is not what I would consider artistic skill, but a craftsman's skill.

Willy

I might be able to learn the chords to "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and I could definitely learn the words, but no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't be Nirvana.

This blue square on the other hand, I could duplicate perfectly without any art training whatsoever.

Mephisto2

Many paint making companies do in fact patent "productized" colours. However, you're right that a specific colour itself cannot be patented.

To add fuel to the fire, so to speak, let me quote what the Tate Modern gallery itself has to say about this work, and more generally Klein himself.


Mr Mephisto

phaedrus

That is an interesting read, while it does not influence my position, it does make me think. 200 pieces of blue! Wow.

charliex

perhaps its already been said and i missed it, but one of the ideals of art is to evoke an emotion in the viewer, i'd say after reading this thread, that did happen. Artists often generate pieces to do this.

art is defined simply as using the imagination to express a feeling or idea, blue for me can definetely be a feeling

Capt.JamesHook

It's not art. I could do that and hang it on my wall.

Mephisto2

So Capt.JamesHook, what you are saying is that you feel you are incapable of producing art yourself?

Interesting...

Mr Mephisto

Capt.JamesHook

I'm tired of seeing these hacks under this modern art guise get recognition for what anyone could do. I have to wonder where the talent is. No, I can't make art. Go look at the works of Vincent Van Gogh and return when you realize what talent is.

Plaid13

no thats not art in any way shape or form. thats just a color. thats what someone does when they cant think of what to paint.

charliex

Van Gogh only ever sold one painting during his life, so he himself was a failure as a commercial artist, in the modern day hes considered to be one of the best artists of all time.

Yet during his life he was treated badly, and had a pretty horrible existance.

Of course art isn't defined as something thats sold, but commercial art is obviously, and he did try to do that, originally as an art dealer and later as an artist.

I've often heard people say that arts rubbish and they could do it themselves, but of course they end up missing the point of the piece. Theres a TV show on BBC called "faking it" where one episode takes a painter and decorator and attempts to turn him into an artist in four weeks, to fool a panel of judges that hes been doing it for years.

He too starts off with the notion that pieces he doesn't understand are rubbish, of course eventually when he learns art appreciation he sees it in a different light, he then went on to become a sucessful conceptual artist himself, some of his pieces I could definetely see people saying, i could do that, as many say about other artists such as pollock etc, but thats not the point.

He looked at damien hirsts work as something he did everyday, as a painter and decorator who traps flys and other insects in paint, but thats only the superficial.

unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it ) not all art is valuable on a simple viewing of it, sometimes you have to get inside the artists head or find the deeper meaning behind it.

whether or not you can reproduce a piece of art easily or not, has nothing to do with its value.

Mephisto2

SIGH

So we are reduced to personal insults now?

I don't need you telling me I can't recognize talent, thank you very much. I'm quite sure I have a more healthy respect and appreciation for art than that displayed by you with your comments.

Mr Mephisto

Mephisto2

Well said.

Mr Mephisto

jbrooks544

art is art. It is not possible to judge it using objective or absolute terms, especially if you feel compelled to say somethng is "not art". Basically, if someone thinks something is art then it is art. You personally don't have to agree but it really isn't smart, or good form to then actually come out and say "this isn't art". Art is personal and subjective. The reason I don't like "that's not art" statements is because all too often this is the argument for someone with a mission to eradicate or censor what they consider to be objectionable art. I assume this is not your motivation and that the question is posed from innocent curiosity. Like anything else, if you don't like it - look at the next painting - change the channel - walk out of the museum.

Also, sometimes people say "Heck Cletus, I could a painted that!". Well, to that kind of comment I say: "You didn't paint it though. When you paint someting that ends up in a museum or gallery then maybe you can venture such statements more honestly." (this isn't directed at the poster - just a related mini-rant).