Subject matter, does it matter?
christopher moss
read a piece he wrote about an argument which took place between himself
and another poet friend of his. Both poets are respected contemporary
writers, both are essentially formalists. As Raab explains it, the
argument went something like this.
_If a poem can be about anything, and beauty is in the form not the
subject matter then is it possible to create a beautiful poem about
space aliens? More appropriately, could a poem about space aliens be
taken seriously as a work of art? I know how ridiculous this may sound
but I think there is something of value here in this argument.
_Incidentally it was Raab's contention that of course you could write a
beautiful poem about space aliens. His friend took the other side and
sites the obvious argument that the subject of space aliens is probably
the most ridiculous thing one could write about. There are so many other
things that haven't been written about, why on earth (no pun intended)
would you write about space aliens? Despite the ridiculous nature of the
subject a formalist perspective would have to agree with Raab, would it
not?
_ Discuss.
-cm
Erik A. Mattila
It seems like these kinds of arguments hinge on the imagined existence of
an authority which would qualify and disqualify 'art.' But obviously no
such authority exists, as Art History demonstrates over and over again.
It's pretty difficult to argue that powerful writers such as Ursula LeGuin,
J.G. Ballard, or even Kurt Vonnegut are not artists making art. Vonnegut
is a grand example, I think, since he dips so vibrantly into the absolute
inane, such as that all human life and destiny happened in order to deliver
a can opener to a robot whose space-craft crash-landed on the moon Titan
(The Sirens of Titan).
Anyway, the true value of all these 'isit art' debates is to see how
rule-bound we are, how we hunger for some sort of father figure to tell us
what is good and what is bad. It's quite amazing, in my view. Why not
just enjoy freedom? If enough people rally behind a space alien poem, see
it as significant, let it be art. Why not? Are we better-off deciding
that it isn't?
Erik Mattila
lake
autopsies......or gothic romance, for that matter. An artist's subject
matter should be experience, not beauty.
- Lake
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
christopher moss
autopsies......or gothic romance, for that matter. An artist's subject
matter should be experience, not beauty.
- Lake
_Interesting response Lake, but I'm a bit confused about the exerience
deal. Would you mind expanding on this point a little bit for me? Big
Macs eh? You're right, all these things are a bit ridiculous, and yes
all of these things have been taken up as subject matter by one or
another artist. I guess my question is more allong the lines, is there
such a thing as serious subject matter? And if there is dosn't this
distinction sort of shoot the formalist perspective out of the water?
-cm
terk
Are we better-off making no 'judgements'? Then what basis do we have for
any meaningful interaction? If I do a straight 'knock-off' of Paradise
Lost with a space-alien as protagonist, is this valid 'art'? How about
if I do it as a multi-level parodic satire of the Romantic poetic genre?
How about if I make it a movie? And call it:"The Man Who Fell To Earth"?
terk
--
"If ignorance is bliss, then why aren't we in
paradise?"
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Tooloose Lowtec
You'd be a Postmodern artist.
--
Tooloose Lowtec
painting a blue streak
lake
others. Saints and royalty have always been popular. Also trees and
flowers and fruit, as accoutrement. But there was a time when the
still-life was considered unworthy of serious depiction. These
preferences seem to change, slowly over the centuries. For example,
today a painting of a warrior in action would not generally be
considered heroic.
A painter's work is communal to a certain extent. Whatever subject
matter there is, has to be familiar to both the artist and the
audience. It serves as a common point of reference.
All subject-matter is symbolic, or mythological rather than empirical.
For example, one could paint a telephone reciever, and that would be
subject matter. But if one turned the telephone upside-down and painted
the back of it, that would not be subject matter.
There are different ways of seeing. People don't see the world as it
is, they see INTERPRETATIONS of it, and these interpretations are
determined largely by culture and a sense of personal identity.
Good painting should convey a sense of wonder, coupled with joy or fear
or anger...... or any human emotion. Any subject-matter that
contributed to it could be considered serious. But they key is HOW the
painter sees, not WHAT he sees.
Alison A Raimes
christopher moss <SS_Po...@webtv.net> writes
>_I went to a reading of Lawrence Raab's poetry this evening where he
>read a piece he wrote about an argument which took place between himself
>and another poet friend of his. Both poets are respected contemporary
>writers, both are essentially formalists. As Raab explains it, the
>argument went something like this.
>_If a poem can be about anything, and beauty is in the form not the
>subject matter then is it possible to create a beautiful poem about
>space aliens? More appropriately, could a poem about space aliens be
>taken seriously as a work of art? I know how ridiculous this may sound
>but I think there is something of value here in this argument.
>_Incidentally it was Raab's contention that of course you could write a
>beautiful poem about space aliens. His friend took the other side and
>sites the obvious argument that the subject of space aliens is probably
>the most ridiculous thing one could write about. There are so many other
>things that haven't been written about, why on earth (no pun intended)
>would you write about space aliens? Despite the ridiculous nature of the
>subject a formalist perspective would have to agree with Raab, would it
>not?
>_ Discuss.
Formalists deal with aesthetics. The subject matter is secondary and
almost irrelevant. Its a bit like the loonyDeli argument - complying to
a stringent formula - in this case of aesthetics - results in beauty
which equals art. The argument doesn't hold water in today's art world,
of course, but then again, there aren't many formalists left.
There was a similar discussion on one of the lists and a participant
posted an essay he wrote on this - it might be interesting to some
http://anthonydamato.law.northwestern.edu/Papers-1/A002-wordsmusic.html
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Erik A. Mattila
> terk
Holy Cow, Terk, I just saw a trailer for "Titus" which is an adaptation
from Shakespere. It looked pretty good to me-I'll definitely rent it when
it gets to the video stores. It looked like a kind of space-alien Paradise
Lost, at least what I could see from the preview.
I'm just saying that 'art' is a sliding scale, as a category. Given this,
one basis for meaningful interaction is to discuss, debate or argue this
'sliding scale.'
Just consider, if you will, one of the problems in Italian Renaissance
art. I use this because any art history text thickens in this time period,
and subsequently Italian Renaissamce productions become a 'standard of
measure' in our culture. The attrition rate of art produced in Italy in
the early, middle and late Renaissance is huge - about 97-98% by some
scholoar's estimates. This means the 'standare of measure' represents
about two or three percent of all art produced in this peirod. So this
leads to the question of why this two percent survived, and the answer is
that such is the case because they were in the collections of patrons who
had the means to protect them. This also means that the 'art' of the
Italian Renaissance is that which was interesting anf valued to a tiny
segment of Italian society, significantly politically powerful, like the
Church, or powerful and wealthy, like the Medici.
Now if Lorenzo d'Medici had an interest in the casts of the Madonna that
were popular in his time, we would have plenty of examples of these in Art
museums. They were very fine, technically extraordinary, and quite
beautiful. But they were common, being mass produced, and they were not
neo-classic, which was of interest to the Circle of the Medici. These
casts are one of the very few examples of popular arts that have survived.
But many others are mentioned in literature, and Renaissance historians are
always disappointed that much didn't survive, as it would certainly have an
impact on how they wrote the art history of this period.
Personally, I find the debate on 'how art judgements came to be' much more
interesting, and communicable, than the evokation of a particular judgement
itself. Since judgements are so culturally specific, the question of how
they come to be has a transculture significance, and in the long run can
tell us more about art on a level that is really useful for an artist. I
just don't see statements like 'this is good, and this is bad' to be
particularly 'meaningful interaction' in and of itself, beyond simply
understanding the bias of a person who may utter such a judgement. If
someone says "I like this" you can concur, but how can you disagree? You
can't say "No, you don't like that!"
Erik Mattila
Sinhue
paint it.
The problem I think you are addressing is tigtht butted folks who are
reluctant to accept something a little out there. Its easy for us to
paint a still life or a landscape without reproach. But do a figure
study with Elvis as the central figure and someone will be there to give
you flak for it.
Part of the problem is that many of the paintings and illustrations we
see with Elvis and Aliens (not necessarily together but I've see that
too) are plain awful. We have all seen the big old velvet Elvis' and
those blacklight alien posters stoner kids love to hang around.
Perhaps it addresses another issue here though.
Since no one has a space alien to sit down and model for them it's sort
of impossible to work from observation. I normaly dont have a problem
with making things up, but I usually try to observe the real ones at
some point. With aliens you cant do this and Elvis can only be seen in
photographs.
(or working at the local circle K)
Miles
In order to move forward, one must learn to disregard their own death,
moving boldly and without hesitation. Only then shall they attain
enlightenment. This is the way of the Samurai.
SS_Po...@webtv.net
of an authority which would qualify and disqualify 'art.' But obviously no
such authority exists, as Art History demonstrates over and over again.
_Erik, I think in this posting you are getting a bit off track, or you're
reading me as being off track. The "is it art" argument bores me a bit too
and I was hoping that some smart people would be able to expound and further
the discussion beyond the simplistic example I used to start this discussion.
_Of corurse no such authority or father figure exists, we're just sort of
thrown into this time peroid where we've got to make the most sense of what's
around us. That's called rationalization, I believe.
It's pretty difficult to argue that powerful writers such as Ursula LeGuin,
J.G. Ballard, or even Kurt Vonnegut are not artists making art. Vonnegut is a
grand example, I think, since he dips so vibrantly into the absolute inane,
such as that all human life and destiny happened in order to deliver a can
opener to a robot whose space-craft crash-landed on the moon Titan (The
Sirens of Titan).
_Perhaps we should include Douglas Adams and Tom Robbins too. In the past I
embraced these authors for both the way that they wrote (form) and the ideas
they wrote about (content). Of course now I realize that they both were just
'pop writers' and neither one of them is realy all that 'out there' or
artistic for that matter. I only metioned these two because they explored
ideas related to Vonnegut's idea of the universal interconnectedness of
things.
Anyway, the true value of all these 'isit art' debates is to see how
rule-bound we are, how we hunger for some sort of father figure to tell us
what is good and what is bad. It's quite amazing, in my view. Why not just
enjoy freedom? If enough people rally behind a space alien poem, see it as
significant, let it be art. Why not? Are we better-off deciding that it
isn't?
_Yes, I think we are better off making some sort of decision or judgement
about art, how else could we learn. Take for example the idea of 'art
looking'. what do we do when we look at something new? Try as we might to
fight the instinct, we judge it (the artwork). We think to ourselves first
does it fit into any existing paradigm we've established in our mind? If so
where. If not what do we do with this new thing? We could build a new
paradigm. We could cast it away, say it's useless to us. We could put it in
some store room, a junk drawer in our head, maybe take it out later when
we've had time to reflect on it. Whatever it is, we've made the initial
judgement which is an important part of the recieving (viewing) process.
Erik Mattila
Are we better-off making no 'judgements'? Then what basis do we have for any
meaningful interaction? If I do a straight 'knock-off' of Paradise Lost with
a space-alien as protagonist, is this valid 'art'? How about if I do it as a
multi-level parodic satire of the Romantic poetic genre? How about if I make
it a movie? And call it:"The Man Who Fell To Earth"?
-In art it dosn't matter what we make a movie of, it's how the movie was made
that counts. Here I agree with both lake and miles' arguments.
terk
I'm just saying that 'art' is a sliding scale, as a category. Given this,
one basis for meaningful interaction is to discuss, debate or argue this
'sliding scale.'
_You seem to be getting at what I had hoped everyone would respond to. That
is the deeer issues here, not the surface "is an alien poem good" sort of
thing.
Just consider, if you will, one of the problems in Italian Renaissance art.
I use this because any art history text thickens in this time period, and
subsequently Italian Renaissamce productions become a 'standard of measure'
in our culture. The attrition rate of art produced in Italy in the early,
middle and late Renaissance is huge - about 97-98% by some scholoar's
estimates. This means the 'standare of measure' represents about two or
three percent of all art produced in this peirod. So this leads to the
question of why this two percent survived, and the answer is that such is the
case because they were in the collections of patrons who had the means to
protect them. This also means that the 'art' of the Italian Renaissance is
that which was interesting anf valued to a tiny segment of Italian society,
significantly politically powerful, like the Church, or powerful and wealthy,
like the Medici.
_And the art that survives from this (our own) peroid is the stuff that is
well preserved, the stuff in museums and private collections. And this art,
much like the art of the Italian Renessance is also considered interesting
and valued by a certain elite, namely artists, writers and collectors.
Now if Lorenzo d'Medici had an interest in the casts of the Madonna that
were popular in his time, we would have plenty of examples of these in Art
museums. They were very fine, technically extraordinary, and quite
beautiful. But they were common, being mass produced, and they were not
neo-classic, which was of interest to the Circle of the Medici. These casts
are one of the very few examples of popular arts that have survived. But many
others are mentioned in literature, and Renaissance historians are always
disappointed that much didn't survive, as it would certainly have an impact
on how they wrote the art history of this period.
_But Medici wasn't into these Madona casts. Why? Because there were more
interesing and innovative artists working at that time. Again this relates to
the old high art / kitch argument, a distinction I don't mind making because
I see important differences between the two.
Personally, I find the debate on 'how art judgements came to be' much more
interesting, and communicable, than the evokation of a particular judgement
itself. Since judgements are so culturally specific, the question of how
they come to be has a transculture significance, and in the long run can tell
us more about art on a level that is really useful for an artist. I just
don't see statements like 'this is good, and this is bad' to be particularly
'meaningful interaction' in and of itself, beyond simply understanding the
bias of a person who may utter such a judgement. If someone says "I like
this" you can concur, but how can you disagree? You can't say "No, you don't
like that!"
_Right on Erik, as I said before I was just scratching at a surface, hoping
the group as a whole would follow the lead and start to dig deeper int the
issues at hand. Write on. Erik Mattila
lake
the photograph. As for aliens, that's the ONLY way to see them. I think
Elvis and the aliens are among THE BEST subjects for modern painters.
Imaginary cowboys are also very good. Bridges are of course eternal, as
is the human female nude. I believe telephones are also quite useful in
this respect. The enormous possibilities of the TV/computer monitor are
as yet untapped, to my knowledge.
Erik A. Mattila
> It seems like these kinds of arguments hinge on the imagined existence
> of an authority which would qualify and disqualify 'art.' But obviously no
> such authority exists, as Art History demonstrates over and over again.
>
> _Erik, I think in this posting you are getting a bit off track, or you're
> reading me as being off track. The "is it art" argument bores me a bit too
> and I was hoping that some smart people would be able to expound and further
> the discussion beyond the simplistic example I used to start this discussion.
but, but...don't all tracks lead to Rome? But yes, I'm probably off-track. We
always select from messages that which fits our own agendas, I think.
> _Of corurse no such authority or father figure exists, we're just sort of
> thrown into this time peroid where we've got to make the most sense of what's
> around us. That's called rationalization, I believe.
Indeed. But let's be careful, the term 'rationalization' may be misapprehended
here. It's not 'rationalization' in the sense of 'the rational vs. the
irrational," but rather 'rationalization' in the sense of translating the chaos
of raw experience into a 'knowable' form. A dream, as experienced, is
'unknowable' but if we sit on the edge of the bed and let the recent dream 'sink
in' we can then tell the dream, since we've 'rationaized it.' I guess that
makes Freud's "Interpretation of Dreamss" the "Interpretation of the
Interpretation of Dreams."
> It's pretty difficult to argue that powerful writers such as Ursula LeGuin,
> J.G. Ballard, or even Kurt Vonnegut are not artists making art. Vonnegut is a
> grand example, I think, since he dips so vibrantly into the absolute inane,
> such as that all human life and destiny happened in order to deliver a can
> opener to a robot whose space-craft crash-landed on the moon Titan (The
> Sirens of Titan).
>
> _Perhaps we should include Douglas Adams and Tom Robbins too. In the past I
> embraced these authors for both the way that they wrote (form) and the ideas
> they wrote about (content). Of course now I realize that they both were just
> 'pop writers' and neither one of them is realy all that 'out there' or
> artistic for that matter. I only metioned these two because they explored
> ideas related to Vonnegut's idea of the universal interconnectedness of
> things.
There's a good debate here, of course. "Popular culture" has emerged, as a new
form, due to historical events - perhaps orginating with Gutenberg's press - but
it's always debatable when things began. At any rate you appear to be mapping
out a criteria here - a standard which one visual form could satisfy and another
fail to satisfy. My personal position on this is that inevitably we will all go
about our business makeing judgements according to some criteria we might hold,
and I recognize this in myself, but I do not see it as meaningful beyond my
personal use of the criteria. In other words I would hesitate to impose it on
others, or attempt to impose it, I should say. For example, I look at the comic
strip as a highly developed art form, and I could even write a thesis defending
that idea. But I recognize that many don't feel this way. It doesn't really
bother me one way or another, as part of my regarding the comic strip as art
isn't really based on any sort of consensus sharing, but rather based on my
studies of the comic strip and an understanding what is going on on the level of
communication, narrative, semiotics, icconology, stereotyping and so on that
shows me a very complex and sophisticated example of visual culture. But I do
recognize a difference between the attainment of competence in the authoring
and/or reading of the comic strip and the attainment of competence in the
authoring and'or reading of what we traditionally call 'fine' or 'high' art.
That is that competency in popular culture is taught and learned directly by
participating in culture - hence the acctual 'lessons' are often invisible,
maybe even mysterious, and the same for high art has been formalized into a
cultural institution that is quite opaque.
>
> Anyway, the true value of all these 'isit art' debates is to see how
> rule-bound we are, how we hunger for some sort of father figure to tell us
> what is good and what is bad. It's quite amazing, in my view. Why not just
> enjoy freedom? If enough people rally behind a space alien poem, see it as
> significant, let it be art. Why not? Are we better-off deciding that it
> isn't?
>
> _Yes, I think we are better off making some sort of decision or judgement
> about art, how else could we learn. Take for example the idea of 'art
> looking'. what do we do when we look at something new? Try as we might to
> fight the instinct, we judge it (the artwork). We think to ourselves first
> does it fit into any existing paradigm we've established in our mind? If so
> where. If not what do we do with this new thing? We could build a new
> paradigm. We could cast it away, say it's useless to us. We could put it in
> some store room, a junk drawer in our head, maybe take it out later when
> we've had time to reflect on it. Whatever it is, we've made the initial
> judgement which is an important part of the recieving (viewing) process.
One of the things that I've noticed about myself, which has bothered me in the
past, but not any longer, is that whatever 'judgement' I might employ to find a
work of art pleasing, life affirming, awesome, or what have you, is in a
constant flux. Mona Lisa may be great one day, and unmoving the next. Maybe
it's a diet issue, I don't know. But I'm very happy art is around to enjoy and
benefit by. It's a very good thing to have in life. A vision of an artless
world is frightening to me.
>
>
> Erik Mattila
>
> Are we better-off making no 'judgements'? Then what basis do we have for any
> meaningful interaction? If I do a straight 'knock-off' of Paradise Lost with
> a space-alien as protagonist, is this valid 'art'? How about if I do it as a
> multi-level parodic satire of the Romantic poetic genre? How about if I make
> it a movie? And call it:"The Man Who Fell To Earth"?
>
> -In art it dosn't matter what we make a movie of, it's how the movie was made
> that counts. Here I agree with both lake and miles' arguments.
>
> terk
Boy, if we want to experience the fly in the ointment, let's consider Leni
Riefensthal, the nazi who wrote the book for the modern documentary movie, as
well as influencing all of cinema very profoundly.
Well, Umberto Eco once commented that the only thing 'invented' in the
Renaissance was money making. He's speaking of a very important turn, of
course, namely the secularization of wealth and power, and the establishment of
capitalists institutions that were not integrated with the Royals of Europe.
This in turn allowed for the development of patronage systems outside the
previous instutions of the Church and Monarchy, which in turn created the space
for artistic change -- certainly 'new' things. But Italian Kitsch was developed
under the new potentials just as was the 'high' art. My point was that if the
Medici had favored ceramic Madonnas, the patronage would have been in place and
artists whose specialty was such would now be household names. This doesn't
mean that Botticelli would have been less a painter, but only points to the
truth that all his work may have perished and be subsequently absent from the
contemporary discourse on Italian art. Of course this idea flys in the face of
those who believe that 'genius' was responsible for the art of this period,
since 'genuis' will always rise to occassion regardless of social, political or
economic environments.
But this is just an example of how I would go about arguing about the origins
and source of artistic judgement criteria. I'm satisfied with what is happened,
historically, it is a good thing, and have no trouble enjoying Italian art to
the max. It's just that I find it fascinating to toy with these historical
developments and map them out in a way that would explain why we like what we
like, or how we feel a work of art is bad or good.
I confess that I liked the ceramic madonnas I saw so well that's it's not hard
for me to imagine them in the Louvre or Museum of Art in place of other
standards and examples of the art of this period. Why not? Most of us agree
that the Greek Vase is a standard of excellence for fine art, and Greek vases
were manufactured items that were produced within a political economy, and more
or less (given the historical influences) mass produced. And of course the
specific vases that survived the ravages represented the most expensive, due to
several historical factors, but this doesn't necessarily mean they were the
best. Who is to say there wasn't a pottery factory in a rural area of Turkey
that produced the best and sold them only to local farmers?
> Personally, I find the debate on 'how art judgements came to be' much more
> interesting, and communicable, than the evokation of a particular judgement
> itself. Since judgements are so culturally specific, the question of how
> they come to be has a transculture significance, and in the long run can tell
> us more about art on a level that is really useful for an artist. I just
> don't see statements like 'this is good, and this is bad' to be particularly
> 'meaningful interaction' in and of itself, beyond simply understanding the
> bias of a person who may utter such a judgement. If someone says "I like
> this" you can concur, but how can you disagree? You can't say "No, you don't
> like that!"
>
> _Right on Erik, as I said before I was just scratching at a surface, hoping
> the group as a whole would follow the lead and start to dig deeper int the
> issues at hand. Write on. Erik Mattila
Right Arm! I just did. Now it's your turn.
Erik
ruth eran
I think that art can be funny/rediculous, as long as it makes you
feel/think about things in a different way it has value. people that
create jokes work hard on the jokes' structure ...
Ruth.
On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, christopher moss wrote:
> _I went to a reading of Lawrence Raab's poetry this evening where he
> read a piece he wrote about an argument which took place between himself
> and another poet friend of his. Both poets are respected contemporary
> writers, both are essentially formalists. As Raab explains it, the
> argument went something like this.
> _If a poem can be about anything, and beauty is in the form not the
> subject matter then is it possible to create a beautiful poem about
> space aliens? More appropriately, could a poem aboutspace aliens be
> taken seriously as a work of art? I know how ridiculous this may sound
> but I think there is something of value here in this argument.
> _Incidentally it was Raab's contention that of course you could write a
> beautiful poem about space aliens. His friend took the other side and
> sites the obvious argument that the subject of space aliens is probably
> the most ridiculous thing one could write about. There are so many other
> things that haven't been written about, why on earth (no pun intended)
> would you write about space aliens? Despite the ridiculous nature of the
> subject a formalist perspective would have to agree with Raab, would it
> not?
> _ Discuss.
>
> -cm
>
>
>
>