How far is too far? What is art to you? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Halx · 08-28-2008, 02:47 PM

You're your own audience. Congratulations, you're a living breathing ouroboros.

Cynthetiq · 08-28-2008, 02:52 PM

Quote:

View: Ejaculating artist arouses Church fury
Source: Thelondonpaper
posted with the TFP thread generator

Ejaculating artist arouses Church fury
Controversial performance artist Jordan McKenzie, 40, is exhibiting 55 images he made by ejaculating over canvas and sprinkling carbon over the results to immortalise them.

The results of his handywork, entitled 'Spent' are to go on display at the Centre for Recent Drawing in Highbury, north London, for a month.

Father Kit Cunningham, of St Etheldredas Church in Clerkenwell, said: “All we can do is pray for the artist.”

The clergyman, based at the oldest Roman Catholic church in London, stressed: “The extraordinary thing is that someone actually thought it was art and put it on at his gallery.

“We are clearly dealing with a very mixed-up person.

Art lover and artist David Gleeson said: “Tracy Emin showed her knickers but this is a different thing entirely.

“I am in favour of almost any form of expression but I do baulk at ejaculating over a piece of paper."

Jordan, who intends to create three drawings a week, said: “This is only the first batch of them.

“It is a diary of my ejaculations they are heartfelt and delicate."

He admitted his mother had no idea about his latest work, but added: "I don't think it would bother her that much.

I think that this isn't so much art, even if he calls it so. But if we'd like to insist, well then me eating rich foods, taking an hour or two to digest it, and then taking a shit and photographing it makes it art when I've declared it.

I think that the point of this thread, comes to bear in this discussion, we all agree that there is art somewhere, we just don't know at what point it becomes or stops being art.

roachboy · 08-28-2008, 02:59 PM

he got press. he pissed off church groups, which is always fun.
so it was a successful action, if that was the idea behind it.
it'd be easy enough to make arguments as to why it might be a vaguely interesting project.
it isn't one that i'd do, but that's ok.
one thing you can be sure of---you don't really know much about the project, assuming there is one, from this article you bit, cyn.
it could be simple: if you say something it art, it becomes in a curious way a statement about statements---documenting an aspect of your life can be art, if you think of it that way and frame it that way. it can be a diary too, if you don't think of it otherwise.
it's all about the framing.
what's so hard about that?

Cynthetiq · 08-28-2008, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

he got press. he pissed off church groups, which is always fun.
so it was a successful action, if that was the idea behind it.
it'd be easy enough to make arguments as to why it might be a vaguely interesting project.
it isn't one that i'd do, but that's ok.
one thing you can be sure of---you don't really know much about the project, assuming there is one, from this article you bit, cyn.
it could be simple: if you say something it art, it becomes in a curious way a statement about statements---documenting an aspect of your life can be art, if you think of it that way and frame it that way. it can be a diary too, if you don't think of it otherwise.
it's all about the framing.
what's so hard about that?

well exploring the top of that then, a troll could be art.....some of the great trolls of the internet, maybe they are art today.

One of the most famous trolls of early Internet
Wired 2.05: The War Between alt.tasteless and rec.pets.cats

Willravel · 08-28-2008, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Halx

Congratulations, you're a living breathing ouroboros.

You're the third person who's said that to me today.

Still, is it art?

Quote:

Ejaculating artist arouses Church fury

Hahahaha... arouses. +10 for creative title

roachboy · 08-28-2008, 03:20 PM

it's in the framing, not the action.

btw, this is not a position i find particularly interesting. i was asked to sit in with a band last weekend. they wanted me to play vibes. i knew where the pitches were so it was in a sense easy, but i didn't know the instrument and so couldn't get to the sort of sound that interests me. the guy who asked me to play said that it didn't matter than i had never played vibes before. to me, it mattered. it's just one of those things.

i work with alot of conceptual art/constraint type systems because i find them interesting, but not so much because they let me do just anything---more because they help me get to someplace i haven't necessarily been before or wouldn't have been able to get to without the devices in place to frame the situation. but this goes entirely for myself--it's just how i think about these things in what i do. it's of no particular general value. i say it probably because i'm growing tired of arguing for approaches that i do not myself find interesting---but i am fine with the idea that other folk doing other things might find them to be so. and that's up to them--and they accept the reactions which their situations generate. anyone does.

and for what it's worth, i genuinely don't care that everybody at a particular performance i do enjoys it. some folk don't. that's fine. in some ways, i'd almost rather talk to folk who didn't really like it afterward though, because they are more willing to say stuff that might be useful. when folk say they like things, it's nice but doesn't tell you much.

Halx · 08-28-2008, 03:31 PM

My point is that its all very self-indulgent. In every other walk of life, self-proclamation is dismissed without some consensus from a third party. Art, it seems, is the only place where we let people roll their own joints and smoke 'em. Its like giving yourself a college degree.

roachboy · 08-28-2008, 03:38 PM

it's no more or less self-indulgent than getting out of bed in the morning, and far less self-indulgent than is arrogating to your preferences the prerogative of defining what someone else does. *that* is self-indulgence.

and even so, who cares if it is?

if you don't want to play a particular game, play another.
it doesn't matter either way.

Halx · 08-28-2008, 03:47 PM

Its called an opinion, and last time I checked, everyone has one. I don't understand your allergic reaction to the notion of someone having an opinion.

LoganSnake · 08-28-2008, 03:51 PM

Here's a nice write-up from Britannica, which also mentions roachboy's point:

Quote:

art also called visual art
Main

a visual object or experience consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination. The term art encompasses diverse media such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, decorative arts, photography, and installation.

The various visual arts exist within a continuum that ranges from purely aesthetic purposes at one end to purely utilitarian purposes at the other. Such a polarity of purpose is reflected in the commonly used terms artist and artisan, the latter understood as one who gives considerable attention to the utilitarian. This should by no means be taken as a rigid scheme, however. Even within one form of art, motives may vary widely; thus a potter or a weaver may create a highly functional work that is at the same time beautiful—a salad bowl, for example, or a blanket—or may create works that have no purpose beyond being admired. In cultures such as Africa and Oceania, a definition of art that encompasses this continuum has existed for centuries. In the West, however, by the mid-18th century the development of academies for painting and sculpture established a sense that these media were “art” and therefore separate from more utilitarian media. This separation of art forms continued among art institutions until the late 20th century, when such rigid distinctions began to be questioned.

Particularly in the 20th century, a different sort of debate arose over the definition of art. A seminal moment in this discussion occurred in 1917, when Dada artist Marcel Duchamp submitted a porcelain urinal entitled Fountain to a public exhibition in New York City. Through this act, Duchamp put forth a new definition of what constitutes a work of art: he implied that it is enough for an artist to deem something “art” and put it in a publicly accepted venue. Implicit within this gesture was a challenge to the established art institutions—such as museums, exhibiting groups, and galleries—that have the power to determine what is and is not considered art. Such intellectual experimentation continued throughout the 20th century in movements such as conceptual art and minimalism. By the turn of the 21st century, a variety of new media (e.g., video art) further challenged traditional definitions of art.

In the end, I don't care if you call something art. I have my own aesthetic doesn't accept such styles as Suprematism or 12-tone Serialism as art. I've colored a lot of pages of my notebooks completely black while in school. Why have I never flaunted them as art? Because I knew it wasn't.

roachboy · 08-28-2008, 04:05 PM

hal---i keep saying, it doesn't really matter what your opinion is except insofar as it's your opinion. when you say "x is not art" all you're saying is that you didn't like it--and that's fine----but you seem to want to go further than that and make a Pronouncement. on that part, see the earlier post about peanut butter.

logan: in a museyroom, say, when you're walking around a contemporary art gallery, you often hear someone loudly say: I COULD HAVE DONE THAT.

but of course, you didn't.
you didn't and you couldn't have.
if you could have, you'd have done it.
but chance are, it would never have occurred to you.
there's the difference.

but if you can make stuff like malevich, why aren't you?

Cynthetiq · 08-28-2008, 04:11 PM

you're right rb, but here's someone that did do it.

My Kid Could Paint That - Movie - Review - The New York Times

this was an interesting movie... I wanted to see it in the theater, but forgot. I'll put it on the netflix queue.

LoganSnake · 08-28-2008, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

hal---i keep saying, it doesn't really matter what your opinion is except insofar as it's your opinion. when you say "x is not art" all you're saying is that you didn't like it--and that's fine----but you seem to want to go further than that and make a Pronouncement. on that part, see the earlier post about peanut butter.

logan: in a museyroom, say, when you're walking around a contemporary art gallery, you often hear someone loudly say: I COULD HAVE DONE THAT.

but of course, you didn't.
you didn't and you couldn't have.
if you could have, you'd have done it.
but chance are, it would never have occurred to you.
there's the difference.

but if you can make stuff like malevich, why aren't you?

Because he and I think differently. He thought his pieces were work of art. I didn't consider my doodles art (but I guess according to you, they were). That's the difference.

Willravel · 08-28-2008, 04:22 PM

Logan, why wouldn't you consider what you did art? Because it's simple? Because you don't like it?

LoganSnake · 08-28-2008, 04:22 PM

Because there was no skill involved in making it and it wasn't aesthetically pleasing.

Willravel · 08-28-2008, 04:45 PM

There was no skill that went into Pachelbel's Canon in D. Still, it's so well liked that it's at literally every wedding I'm asked to play at.

As an aside, I want to kill Pachelbel.

The aesthetically pleasing part gets back to what rb has been saying; "it's not art because you don't like it?" is a legitimate question, and could be expanded to, "it's not art because you think all art requires great skill?"

Halx · 08-28-2008, 04:45 PM

rb, my recurring point, though, is that its all subjective. That alone says that I'm saying what I think and it probably has nothing to do with what you think. Which is why its subjective. I've only pushed further upon feeling that you are putting your foot down and declaring a stark reality in the face of so many differing takes.

roachboy · 08-28-2008, 04:46 PM

logan--you miss the point. first off, thinking about materials or a medium is a skill. trust me on this one. it is not obvious how to go about it. if malevich was interested in purity of form and was working with painting as a medium, then the square kinda follows. after he did it, and after the frame became known, it definitely followed...alot of art historian types line that series of pieces up against the emergence of photography, which the argument goes undermined the need to representational painting--so malevich was one of the earlier folk to turn painting on itself. this is why i keep saying its all in the framing of an action---the emphasis on framing is what makes art from the last century--you know, the main narrative (regardless of the problems that narrative has)---very different from 19th century art.

the move to framing also meant that works became more specialized and addressed mostly either other artists or an audience that knew the ground rules. so you have to bring something into the experience to in a way complete it. if you don't know the drill, it won't do much for you. so it's more a shift in the location and meaning of craft---but it doesn't obviate technical skill in making pieces. there are some folk out there with amazing levels of skill. have a look an anselm keifer's work sometime.

one effect of this is to exclude people from being able to "see" what's going on in the piece. personally, i have no problem with that---i don't buy the idea that a democratic "culture" is easy, that it means that no-one has to do any work to understand what a piece might be doing.

what i've left out of this little game so far is the role of the artworld itself in constructing or making work what it comes to be. not everything ends up in museyrooms. not everything ends up in galleries. not all sound work is performed, not all is shown. it matters very much who you know---if you want your stuff out in the wider world, it has to be talked about, written about--other folk have to legitimate themselves by legitimating your work. this mostly because people typically want what they are told they want, one way or another. people typically don't explore-they gravitate toward what they know, and what they like that's new is a version of what they already know. if you're making stuff, more can happen for you in the course of a single party---if its the "right" party--than will happen for you in many years of working outside the networks. so the spaces in which you encounter new things are rarely neutral.

it mattered very much *where* duchamp put up the readymades in 1919.
if he had done the same thing in, say, a grange hall in rural iowa, it would functionally never have happened.

LoganSnake · 08-28-2008, 04:56 PM

This reminds me of a theistical conversation I've had with a priest in training. "Just because you don't believe in god, does not mean that god doesn't exist. Thinking otherwise is too self centered".

You can call it art. I won't acknowledge it as such, despite seeing the point you're trying to make.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

There was no skill that went into Pachelbel's Canon in D. Still, it's so well liked that it's at literally every wedding I'm asked to play at.

As an aside, I want to kill Pachelbel.

The aesthetically pleasing part gets back to what rb has been saying; "it's not art because you don't like it?" is a legitimate question, and could be expanded to, "it's not art because you think all art requires great skill?"

YouTube - Pachelbel Rant

mixedmedia · 08-28-2008, 05:08 PM

[quote]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Halx

mm, by your logic, you're trying to answer the age old question of "if a tree falls in the woods..." How would we know they're artists unless we see their work?

No, I'm not.

My point is that we don't have to know they are artists. Art, music, literature do not need to be experienced by more than the person who created them to be art, music and literature. Even lying in a drawer, a closet or the city dump they are what they were created to be.
Just like light bulbs.

Quote:

Something only exists if it has a witness.

The artist witnesses. Why do they need someone else's approval?

Quote:

And who said anything about not caring?

I took from some of your earlier comments that you weren't very interested in art. If I read too much into it, then I apologize.

Art is occurring and re-occurring around us at all times - sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. You may call this a hippie concept, but if you seriously believe that then you are missing so much, and I grieve for the fact that you live in a city like NY and you don't see it. What is art but an attempt to capture visions, concepts and feelings and interpret them in a way that you are driven to do? It makes no difference if 'you could do that' (not the literal you) because, like roachboy said, 'you' didn't. It doesn't matter if you like it, because it isn't necessary for someone else to relate to it. Art is not a social phenomenon unless that is the expressed intention of the artist - and sometimes it is. Art (the kind that winds up in museums) is a personal expression and it comes in limitless forms.

Willravel · 08-28-2008, 05:08 PM

(to the video) Wow, he sums it up nicely.

Halx · 08-28-2008, 05:17 PM

Well, I care enough to go on so long, right? Please see my ouroboros comment regarding artists who act as their own audiences. See also: University of Phoenix.

Baraka_Guru · 08-28-2008, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Halx

You're your own audience. Congratulations, you're a living breathing ouroboros.

This view doesn't work. It assumes that the art and its artist exists within a vacuum, which it doesn't. Art doesn't need an audience at all, really. It merely needs to contain an idea. One's attempt to unpack that idea, interpret it, and then synthesize it into an experience and memory is the act of an audience, whether or not it's the artist alone.

Art is contained within the idea, not its manifestation. It is also often (always?) based on or influenced by ideas that came before it. So why does it need an audience beyond the act of taking away of an experience of the art and its idea? Whether someone experiences and interprets it or not does not take away its status as art—it merely exists as an misunderstood or ignored work of art.

One can say they create art for others, or for oneself, but ultimately, the power of the art is out of their hands either way. Once an idea is born and made manifest, it belongs to no one, but can be experience by everyone (or no one).

Ayashe · 08-28-2008, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ngdawg

What I can say with certainty that anything that exploits the innocent, demeans any group or person or commits unwitting cruelty upon another living thing, then calls it "art", is merely a scam artist that is only after the gasps and negative attention of a fickle public. Art, it ain't.

Not to cut you short ngdawg as you made several good points. This for me would be the bottom line for myself. I could not have said it better myself.

Willravel · 08-28-2008, 09:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

This view doesn't work. It assumes that the art and its artist exists within a vacuum, which it doesn't. Art doesn't need an audience at all, really. It merely needs to contain an idea. One's attempt to unpack that idea, interpret it, and then synthesize it into an experience and memory is the act of an audience, whether or not it's the artist alone.

Art is contained within the idea, not its manifestation. It is also often (always?) based on or influenced by ideas that came before it. So why does it need an audience beyond the act of taking away of an experience of the art and its idea? Whether someone experiences and interprets it or not does not take away its status as art—it merely exists as an misunderstood or ignored work of art.

One can say they create art for others, or for oneself, but ultimately, the power of the art is out of their hands either way. Once an idea is born and made manifest, it belongs to no one, but can be experience by everyone (or no one).

This is a fantastic summarization of my views.

Jenna · 09-14-2008, 10:49 PM

I would say...

Nothing is too far - but that doesn't mean I have to like it or even understand it.

vanblah · 09-16-2008, 08:36 AM

The concept of art is constantly changing. It has everything to do with intention and rarely anything to do with the actual piece itself. There are also varying degrees of art. There is "high art" and there is "folk art"; there are artists who are craftsmen and artists who know almost nothing about the craft.

To me, high art is about concepts and not the medium or the piece itself (although it is certainly intertwined). These are the pieces that are intended by the artist to get the viewers to talk about the concept rather than the piece itself. A LOT of people don't "get" this kind of art.

Folk art on the other hand is more about aesthetics; or even decoration. People talk about the piece or medium. Good cabinet-makers are certainly artists (craftsmen).

Where it can get really interesting is when folk art becomes high art (and vice-versa) due to time or misinterpretation.

For instance: if I take a picture of my grandmother--is it art? What if I paint a picture of my grandmother--is it art because I used paint instead of a camera? What if Rembrandt painted a picture of an old woman? He did--several times--they were pretty much just the same thing as snapshots from a camera. Of course, now we consider it "art." Why? He was really good at it ... but there are several artists alive today with the same capability.

08-28-2008, 02:47 PM	#41 (permalink)
Halx Please touch this. Owner/Admin Location: Manhattan	You're your own audience. Congratulations, you're a living breathing ouroboros. __________________ You have found this post informative. -The Administrator [Don't Feed The Animals]

08-28-2008, 02:59 PM	#43 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	he got press. he pissed off church groups, which is always fun. so it was a successful action, if that was the idea behind it. it'd be easy enough to make arguments as to why it might be a vaguely interesting project. it isn't one that i'd do, but that's ok. one thing you can be sure of---you don't really know much about the project, assuming there is one, from this article you bit, cyn. it could be simple: if you say something it art, it becomes in a curious way a statement about statements---documenting an aspect of your life can be art, if you think of it that way and frame it that way. it can be a diary too, if you don't think of it otherwise. it's all about the framing. what's so hard about that? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

08-28-2008, 03:20 PM	#46 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	it's in the framing, not the action. btw, this is not a position i find particularly interesting. i was asked to sit in with a band last weekend. they wanted me to play vibes. i knew where the pitches were so it was in a sense easy, but i didn't know the instrument and so couldn't get to the sort of sound that interests me. the guy who asked me to play said that it didn't matter than i had never played vibes before. to me, it mattered. it's just one of those things. i work with alot of conceptual art/constraint type systems because i find them interesting, but not so much because they let me do just anything---more because they help me get to someplace i haven't necessarily been before or wouldn't have been able to get to without the devices in place to frame the situation. but this goes entirely for myself--it's just how i think about these things in what i do. it's of no particular general value. i say it probably because i'm growing tired of arguing for approaches that i do not myself find interesting---but i am fine with the idea that other folk doing other things might find them to be so. and that's up to them--and they accept the reactions which their situations generate. anyone does. and for what it's worth, i genuinely don't care that everybody at a particular performance i do enjoys it. some folk don't. that's fine. in some ways, i'd almost rather talk to folk who didn't really like it afterward though, because they are more willing to say stuff that might be useful. when folk say they like things, it's nice but doesn't tell you much. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

08-28-2008, 03:31 PM	#47 (permalink)
Halx Please touch this. Owner/Admin Location: Manhattan	My point is that its all very self-indulgent. In every other walk of life, self-proclamation is dismissed without some consensus from a third party. Art, it seems, is the only place where we let people roll their own joints and smoke 'em. Its like giving yourself a college degree. __________________ You have found this post informative. -The Administrator [Don't Feed The Animals]

08-28-2008, 03:38 PM	#48 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	it's no more or less self-indulgent than getting out of bed in the morning, and far less self-indulgent than is arrogating to your preferences the prerogative of defining what someone else does. that is self-indulgence. and even so, who cares if it is? if you don't want to play a particular game, play another. it doesn't matter either way. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

08-28-2008, 03:47 PM	#49 (permalink)
Halx Please touch this. Owner/Admin Location: Manhattan	Its called an opinion, and last time I checked, everyone has one. I don't understand your allergic reaction to the notion of someone having an opinion. __________________ You have found this post informative. -The Administrator [Don't Feed The Animals]

08-28-2008, 04:05 PM	#51 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	hal---i keep saying, it doesn't really matter what your opinion is except insofar as it's your opinion. when you say "x is not art" all you're saying is that you didn't like it--and that's fine----but you seem to want to go further than that and make a Pronouncement. on that part, see the earlier post about peanut butter. logan: in a museyroom, say, when you're walking around a contemporary art gallery, you often hear someone loudly say: I COULD HAVE DONE THAT. but of course, you didn't. you didn't and you couldn't have. if you could have, you'd have done it. but chance are, it would never have occurred to you. there's the difference. but if you can make stuff like malevich, why aren't you? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 08-28-2008 at 04:08 PM..

08-28-2008, 04:11 PM	#52 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	you're right rb, but here's someone that did do it. My Kid Could Paint That - Movie - Review - The New York Times this was an interesting movie... I wanted to see it in the theater, but forgot. I'll put it on the netflix queue. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

08-28-2008, 04:22 PM	#54 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Logan, why wouldn't you consider what you did art? Because it's simple? Because you don't like it?

08-28-2008, 04:22 PM	#55 (permalink)
LoganSnake We work alone Location: Cake Town	Because there was no skill involved in making it and it wasn't aesthetically pleasing. __________________ Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

08-28-2008, 04:45 PM	#56 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	There was no skill that went into Pachelbel's Canon in D. Still, it's so well liked that it's at literally every wedding I'm asked to play at. As an aside, I want to kill Pachelbel. The aesthetically pleasing part gets back to what rb has been saying; "it's not art because you don't like it?" is a legitimate question, and could be expanded to, "it's not art because you think all art requires great skill?"

08-28-2008, 04:45 PM	#57 (permalink)
Halx Please touch this. Owner/Admin Location: Manhattan	rb, my recurring point, though, is that its all subjective. That alone says that I'm saying what I think and it probably has nothing to do with what you think. Which is why its subjective. I've only pushed further upon feeling that you are putting your foot down and declaring a stark reality in the face of so many differing takes. __________________ You have found this post informative. -The Administrator [Don't Feed The Animals]

08-28-2008, 04:46 PM	#58 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	logan--you miss the point. first off, thinking about materials or a medium is a skill. trust me on this one. it is not obvious how to go about it. if malevich was interested in purity of form and was working with painting as a medium, then the square kinda follows. after he did it, and after the frame became known, it definitely followed...alot of art historian types line that series of pieces up against the emergence of photography, which the argument goes undermined the need to representational painting--so malevich was one of the earlier folk to turn painting on itself. this is why i keep saying its all in the framing of an action---the emphasis on framing is what makes art from the last century--you know, the main narrative (regardless of the problems that narrative has)---very different from 19th century art. the move to framing also meant that works became more specialized and addressed mostly either other artists or an audience that knew the ground rules. so you have to bring something into the experience to in a way complete it. if you don't know the drill, it won't do much for you. so it's more a shift in the location and meaning of craft---but it doesn't obviate technical skill in making pieces. there are some folk out there with amazing levels of skill. have a look an anselm keifer's work sometime. one effect of this is to exclude people from being able to "see" what's going on in the piece. personally, i have no problem with that---i don't buy the idea that a democratic "culture" is easy, that it means that no-one has to do any work to understand what a piece might be doing. what i've left out of this little game so far is the role of the artworld itself in constructing or making work what it comes to be. not everything ends up in museyrooms. not everything ends up in galleries. not all sound work is performed, not all is shown. it matters very much who you know---if you want your stuff out in the wider world, it has to be talked about, written about--other folk have to legitimate themselves by legitimating your work. this mostly because people typically want what they are told they want, one way or another. people typically don't explore-they gravitate toward what they know, and what they like that's new is a version of what they already know. if you're making stuff, more can happen for you in the course of a single party---if its the "right" party--than will happen for you in many years of working outside the networks. so the spaces in which you encounter new things are rarely neutral. it mattered very much where duchamp put up the readymades in 1919. if he had done the same thing in, say, a grange hall in rural iowa, it would functionally never have happened. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

08-28-2008, 05:08 PM	#61 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	(to the video) Wow, he sums it up nicely.

08-28-2008, 05:17 PM	#62 (permalink)
Halx Please touch this. Owner/Admin Location: Manhattan	Well, I care enough to go on so long, right? Please see my ouroboros comment regarding artists who act as their own audiences. See also: University of Phoenix. __________________ You have found this post informative. -The Administrator [Don't Feed The Animals]

09-14-2008, 10:49 PM	#66 (permalink)
Jenna Psycho Location: Wisconsin	I would say... Nothing is too far - but that doesn't mean I have to like it or even understand it.

09-16-2008, 08:36 AM	#67 (permalink)
vanblah Junkie	The concept of art is constantly changing. It has everything to do with intention and rarely anything to do with the actual piece itself. There are also varying degrees of art. There is "high art" and there is "folk art"; there are artists who are craftsmen and artists who know almost nothing about the craft. To me, high art is about concepts and not the medium or the piece itself (although it is certainly intertwined). These are the pieces that are intended by the artist to get the viewers to talk about the concept rather than the piece itself. A LOT of people don't "get" this kind of art. Folk art on the other hand is more about aesthetics; or even decoration. People talk about the piece or medium. Good cabinet-makers are certainly artists (craftsmen). Where it can get really interesting is when folk art becomes high art (and vice-versa) due to time or misinterpretation. For instance: if I take a picture of my grandmother--is it art? What if I paint a picture of my grandmother--is it art because I used paint instead of a camera? What if Rembrandt painted a picture of an old woman? He did--several times--they were pretty much just the same thing as snapshots from a camera. Of course, now we consider it "art." Why? He was really good at it ... but there are several artists alive today with the same capability.