Is creativity an important aspect in art?
Sharon Barcone
Disenfrenchisement of Art" there seems to be little thought to the influence
of creativity on the work that artists produce. According to Danto Art
movements flowed from the effort to copy a representation that showed
subjects as the eye saw them (as with perspective, shadows, etc.) to
painting in a way that did not match visual perception at all (as with flat
space and abstract design).
I will freely admit that part of the attraction to painting for me is what I
call the "God syndrome". No, I do not think I am God nor do I aspire to be.
But I am captivated by that aspect that is often called creativity, to
create. To begin with no idea and find a creative spark that leads me to
paint an image is what it is all about for me. Probably 75% of all I have
painted in my life has come out of my own imagination and what has come from
a physical reality is influenced and changed by the creative process. I also
admit to greatly enjoying the manipulation of paint with brush and the
discovery of what I can accomplish when doing so.
Am I alone out here in la-la land?
"never can true reconcilement grow, where wounds of deadly hate have pierced
so deep" -Milton
sharon
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Owen F. Ransen
<sha...@usadatanet.net> wrote:
>sharon
Funny you should mention creativity, I am at this very moment
reading "The Creative Mind" by Margaret Boden. I've not got
very far yet, seems interesting enough to read completely,
though I'm not sure I agree with all the arguments.
I think (sometimes) that the world continuously produces
"stuff", most of which is rubbish, and what constitutes
creativity is that which survives the filters of time
and history.
*Sometimes* I think that.
--
Owen F. Ransen
http://www.ransen.com/
Home of Gliftic & Repligator Image Generators
William Engell
I'll take a little of that.
It seems to me that the prime, or initial motivation for a creative
act --not any formally specific creative act, but the impulse to act-- is
largely unconscious. Anything rational happens after we are motivated to
act or consider acting in some (creative) way. I think the creative act is
a synthesis of this impulse expressed through the technique we use and its
forms.
If I was given to using a Jaynesian sort of metaphor I'd probably say
that the creative act is the unconscious activity of our brain having a
dialogue with the conscious world (including ours', and others') and the
unconscious activity of others by means of the techniques of art and craft
and science. But, hey, I'm not given to using those sorts of metaphors.
We have this lil' demon portion of our mind--nothing evil intended, it's
us, after all-- that hides out beneath our awareness. It impells us to do
things, everything from saying hello to making art. We write the next word
at a rate that precludes conscious consideration of what we want to say and
how we should say it. We aren't surprised (often), because our awareness
and this other, unconscious part of our minds are part of the fundamental
ground of our functioning in the world. We expect to "get the answer." or
have the idea or decide what to do next. Sometimes we parse it out
consciously, other times we "go with our gut." More often than not, I
think, we "go with our gut." So, this lil'demon is holding forth in a much
more complex way than merely being an extension of our autonomic nervous
system. If we thought to dialogue with it more directly, we might be
insane. What we seem to be doing is letting it act out its charade.
A light (lite!) treatment of a serious matter, I'm afraid. Whatever
will we think of next?!
Sharon Barcone wrote in message <3a06b...@news5.newsfeeds.com>...
Alison A Raimes
<ransen_sp...@nemo.it> writes
>I think (sometimes) that the world continuously produces
>"stuff", most of which is rubbish, and what constitutes
>creativity is that which survives the filters of time
>and history.
Are you then denying creativity to millions of indigenous tribes? What
has *surviving* time and history got to do with the human need to use
the creative process? I think you are confused with the lure of the
museums and their dictatorship of what is *great*.
>
>*Sometimes* I think that.
>
Then you need to do a rethink.
Alison A Raimes
http://www.raimes.com
http://artlives.homestead.com
Sharon Barcone
Owen F. Ransen wrote in message <3a06c8a9...@news.newsguy.com>...
>Funny you should mention creativity, I am at this very moment
>reading "The Creative Mind" by Margaret Boden. I've not got
>very far yet, seems interesting enough to read completely,
>though I'm not sure I agree with all the arguments.
Owen, I have heard of this book but have not read it yet. Can you give me
some idea of it's premise? Since the very idea of creativity has played
rather heavily on my mind lately I will look for it at bn.com. I would like
to know your over all feeling about it when you have finished it so please
let me know.
>
>I think (sometimes) that the world continuously produces
>"stuff", most of which is rubbish, and what constitutes
>creativity is that which survives the filters of time
>and history.
Yes, this may be true but I think that some times "stuff" is produced to
meet the desires of those who have a fondness for one form of "stuff" or
another. I know some artists who paint like the Impressionists because there
is a market for that work. Their creativity is at work looking for a new
landscape to express in that manner and not a new way to express that
landscape. If you know what I mean.
But how does the creative process in general affect art in the long term?
Some artists play off the work of others, not that this is bad. It is like
saying "If I were to paint that I would do it this way." Is that the
creative aspect in play or a direct borrowing of someone else's creativity?
>
>*Sometimes* I think that.
What do you think at other times?
>--
>Owen F. Ransen
>http://www.ransen.com/
>Home of Gliftic & Repligator Image Generators
"never can true reconcilement grow, where wounds of deadly hate have pierced
Sharon Barcone
>S,
> I'll take a little of that.
> It seems to me that the prime, or initial motivation for a creative
>act --not any formally specific creative act, but the impulse to act-- is
>largely unconscious.
Ok, I may be able to go along with that and than would ask, would you say
that the impulse to act or maybe use that creative urge is also an aspect
that we are able to control or not? Or in another way, We may be able to
use this creative impulse but do we actually control the output we derive
from the unconscious impulse?
> Anything rational happens after we are motivated to
>act or consider acting in some (creative) way. I think the creative act is
>a synthesis of this impulse expressed through the technique we use and its
>forms.
>If I was given to using a Jaynesian sort of metaphor I'd probably say
>that the creative act is the unconscious activity of our brain having a
>dialogue with the conscious world (including ours', and others') and the
>unconscious activity of others by means of the techniques of art and craft
>and science. But, hey, I'm not given to using those sorts of metaphors.
> We have this lil' demon portion of our mind--nothing evil intended,
it's
>us, after all-- that hides out beneath our awareness. It impells us to do
>things, everything from saying hello to making art.
Would you say that those who say "I paint because I have to (or substitute
need to or any other form of expression of strong urge)" are compelled by a
need for a creative outlet? Is that lil demon insisting on an outlet?
> We write the next word
>at a rate that precludes conscious consideration of what we want to say and
>how we should say it. We aren't surprised (often), because our awareness
>and this other, unconscious part of our minds are part of the fundamental
>ground of our functioning in the world. We expect to "get the answer." or
>have the idea or decide what to do next. Sometimes we parse it out
>consciously, other times we "go with our gut." More often than not, I
>think, we "go with our gut."
So, would you consider that all of our gut feelings are connected to our
creative lil demon?
> So, this lil'demon is holding forth in a much
>more complex way than merely being an extension of our autonomic nervous
>system. If we thought to dialogue with it more directly, we might be
>insane.
Ah, here is my dilemma! I want to dialogue directly with it. I want control
of this lil demon. Shall I risk my sanity? Must I? And if I could control
the demon would my conscious reduce the demon's effectiveness?
> What we seem to be doing is letting it act out its charade.
> A light (lite!) treatment of a serious matter, I'm afraid. Whatever
>will we think of next?!
Paul Klee felt that creativity ( which I agree may lie in the subconscious)
was an aspect we could not actually control whereas Salvador Dali felt that
the subconscious could at least be reached and consciously used. Does
Freud's work offer and insight to this idea...
Owen F. Ransen
wrote:
>In article <3a06c8a9...@news.newsguy.com>, Owen F. Ransen
><ransen_sp...@nemo.it> writes
>
>>I think (sometimes) that the world continuously produces
>>"stuff", most of which is rubbish, and what constitutes
>>creativity is that which survives the filters of time
>>and history.
>
>Are you then denying creativity to millions of indigenous tribes? What
>has *surviving* time and history got to do with the human need to use
>the creative process? I think you are confused with the lure of the
>museums and their dictatorship of what is *great*.
Yes, I have confused personal (and hence often unknown) creativity
with public famous creativity.
>>*Sometimes* I think that.
>Then you need to do a rethink.
>Alison A Raimes
Yes, don't we all, sometimes?
Owen F. Ransen
<sha...@usadatanet.net> wrote:
>Owen F. Ransen wrote in message <3a06c8a9...@news.newsguy.com>...
>>Funny you should mention creativity, I am at this very moment
>>reading "The Creative Mind" by Margaret Boden.
>Owen, I have heard of this book but have not read it yet. Can you give me
>some idea of it's premise?
I hate to say what I think after only 3 chapters, but here goes.
She tries to find out about human creativity by seeing if
it can be modelled with computer artificial intelligence
programs.
I don't think she thinks that computers can, in themselves,
be creative.
One good point she makes is that a creative cook (for
example) (or a creative engineer or a creative scientist)
are just as creative as a creative artist. The book
includes "fine-art" but is not limited by it.
She discounts the "God given creativity" theory.
She thinks that having a prepared mind helps in coming
up with new ideas. Being skilled in what you do is
important. Being open is also important.
I cannot say more yet, whereof I know nothing, thereof I
must remain silent.
>But how does the creative process in general affect art in the long term?
Many flowers bloom and die in the desert unseen, and I
suspect that there are thousands of creative artists out
there who will never be known as such because of economic
or social reasons. So "Fine Art" is affected only by the
"famous creators" even though they may not be the "most
creative creators".
>Some artists play off the work of others, not that this is bad. It is like
>saying "If I were to paint that I would do it this way." Is that the
>creative aspect in play or a direct borrowing of someone else's creativity?
Personally I never enjoy comedians who get a laugh by
mimicing famous people. I can see the skill, but it
seem less creative than inventing situations and jokes.
>>*Sometimes* I think that.
>What do you think at other times?
Thinking about it, now, the same! That zillions of people are
creative. The lucky ones get recognised and paid for that.
William Engell
Sharon Barcone wrote in message
>
>that the impulse to act or maybe use that creative urge is also an aspect
>that we are able to control or not? Or in another way, We may be able to
>use this creative impulse but do we actually control the output we derive
>from the unconscious impulse?
It seems to me that we may not be able to control the impulse, only the
expression of it. I'd certainly agree that we affect it. There is a
natural feedback going on. However, while we know what we do after the
impulse, we don't know what our demon (I'm tired of writing 'lil) will do
with it.
>Would you say that those who say "I paint because I have to (or substitute
>need to or any other form of expression of strong urge)" are compelled by a
>need for a creative outlet? Is that lil demon insisting on an outlet?
Strongly suggesting, sure. You've felt it. It's very compelling.
>So, would you consider that all of our gut feelings are connected to our
>creative lil demon?
Certainly possible. It seems within the realm of possibility that the demon
may be involved when we have ambiguous but very real feelings of attraction
or revulsion, anxiety or fear. It may be communicating with us chemically.
>Ah, here is my dilemma! I want to dialogue directly with it. I want control
>of this lil demon. Shall I risk my sanity? Must I? And if I could control
>the demon would my conscious reduce the demon's effectiveness?
My guess is that you can't get to it directly and live (with any quality of
life). It may be possible to facilitate the communication, but I think that
for one to remain functionally sane it would have to be through some
intermediating act. In fact, art is probably one of the best such acts.
It twould be bad if this thing actually had a discrete voice in your head.
So far as I can see, that's not how this stuff works, when it works.
>Paul Klee felt that creativity ( which I agree may lie in the subconscious)
>was an aspect we could not actually control whereas Salvador Dali felt that
>the subconscious could at least be reached and consciously used. Does
>Freud's work offer and insight to this idea...
I'm not conversant with Fruedian theory. I agree that the unconscious can
be put to work toward some conscious end. For starters, we either decide to
have a dialog with it (make art, let's say) or not. But who knows if that's
a conscious choice. I'm not trying to make a case for some sort of
determinism, though I think that people are more determined than most would
like to believe. We can fight consciously against the impulses, facilitate
thier employment in our lives, or strike a comfortable middle road between
the extremes.
One thing I'd suggest is that if you're working well, you're probably very
much in the employ of your unconscious already.
Bill
Alison A Raimes
<ransen_sp...@nemo.it> writes
>Yes, I have confused personal (and hence often unknown) creativity
>with public famous creativity.
I think you have confused *art* with *Fine Art* - which is a common
error. Art is a natural tendency in man, which Danto identifies very
early in his writings (and so discards further discussion on it in
favour of a more theoretical inquiry into Fine Art). *Art*, is inherent
in every human being. *Fine Art* is a Western Discipline which is taught
- other than in the very rare exceptional circumstance.
So yes, everything is art, but not everything is *Fine Art*. As so many
theoreticians have discussed, the practise of *Fine Art* in terms of the
*classical* is an unnatural tendency. It involves the forced treatment
of the subject and a set of rules to adhere to. The treatment of form
and light and the treatment of the static (in particular the body), is
not *natural*. As we know, throughout Modern Art this has been
questioned and dissected and torn apart in an attempt to free art from
its constraints. Kandinsky had a great impact on the freeing of art in
his book _Concerning the Spiritual in Art_ in 1914 which he sought to
cast off the classical constraints of art by discarding all references
to the material world. It was a revolutionary idea - after all, the
entire make up of the Western world depended on worship of man and his
environment - the material world.
Modern Art is a philosophical investigation into the very essence of
what we believe is art, which has been forced on us as part of the
structure of our culture. The very word *modern* indicates a move away
from the constraints of *traditional*. It offered an art where no *a
priori* constraints were in place. Impossible, of course, because each
age eventually builds its own constraints. Contemporary art discards
even those. This we are overpowered by the freedom and the sheer volume
of art being produced. The *quality* is apparently gone. What we are now
faced with, is art that is so pluralistic in its intentions that it
confuses the viewer - it offers an overload of information. And probably
confuses the artist too. But if we are able to consider this as a
monumental move in the history of art, and that we are too close to be
able to take the objective view of its greater importance, I think we
would be overwhelmed by its implications. Danto does a good job in
recognising this. This, as he so often points out, is the end of art
.... Fine Art.
--
Alison A Raimes
<ransen_sp...@nemo.it> writes
>I don't think she thinks that computers can, in themselves,
>be creative.
>
>One good point she makes is that a creative cook (for
>example) (or a creative engineer or a creative scientist)
>are just as creative as a creative artist. The book
>includes "fine-art" but is not limited by it.
>
>She discounts the "God given creativity" theory.
>
>She thinks that having a prepared mind helps in coming
>up with new ideas. Being skilled in what you do is
>important. Being open is also important.
Well perhaps you are too soon into the book to know where she is
heading, but she certainly hasn't gone anywhere yet that other
theoreticians haven't.
Danto certainly did not dismiss the importance of creativity in
producing works of art. However, his writings were concerned with how
our perceptions have been moulded by our culture. Thus he took it for
granted, or assumed we had all read his previous works, that we
understood creativity to be inherent in our making of art. He also
assumes that we understand that only a fraction of our *creativity* in
our making of art, comes from the imagination - because the imagination
is also moulded by our culture. To believe that your art comes from your
own imagination is thus a sign of the ego by which Western art has
grown. A sense of power over the world in which we are able to make our
*mark* - our *mark* being of great relevance to Western man. We are
unable to accept our insignificance in the universe, yet that is exactly
what man is - insignificant.
In terms of the computer and its role in art, Danto described bronze and
marble as a means to the end - that the work of art would not exist
without its presence, but that without it, art exists in a state of
purity. In other words it is wrong to assume the computer, or the bronze
*is* the art - but that it is the agent to release the art into the
world. In other words, it is of little importance what tools are used.
There are some very good essays to be found on the role of computer in
art and culture at Ctheory ...... which I think is
http://www.ctheory.com or .net Maybe!
James N. Stewart
"Alison A Raimes" <ali...@raimes.com> wrote in message
news:3Npc4UA6...@raimes.com...
> In article <3a06c8a9...@news.newsguy.com>, Owen F. Ransen
> <ransen_sp...@nemo.it> writes
>
> >I think (sometimes) that the world continuously produces
> >"stuff", most of which is rubbish, and what constitutes
> >creativity is that which survives the filters of time
> >and history.
>
> Are you then denying creativity to millions of indigenous tribes?
Creativity is a fashionable part of the fine arts in the west at the moment.
There is ample evidence that it is not particularly important in many
cultures. One could cite Forge's study of the Abelam in New Guinea; they
hold tow values in connection to artistic production: correctness and
power.
Owen F. Ransen
<sha...@usadatanet.net> wrote:
>Ah, here is my dilemma! I want to dialogue directly with it. I want control
>of this lil demon. Shall I risk my sanity? Must I? And if I could control
>the demon would my conscious reduce the demon's effectiveness?
>sharon
Practice your art, keep an open mind, be critical, note down
ideas as they come to you, that is the best practical way of
capturing your creativity (or the best way *I* have found so far).
*Sometimes* ideas can be generated, try Edward de Bono's
"Lateral Thinking" for techniques, should still be in
print I think.
Owen F. Ransen
<sha...@usadatanet.net> wrote:
>Salvador Dali felt that
>the subconscious could at least be reached and consciously used. Does
>Freud's work offer and insight to this idea...
>sharon
Rene Magritte: "Psychoanalysis has nothing to say about works
of art which evoke the mystery of the world."
Owen F. Ransen
wrote:
>In article <3a0a3e9f...@news.newsguy.com>, Owen F. Ransen
><ransen_sp...@nemo.it> writes
>
>>Yes, I have confused personal (and hence often unknown) creativity
>>with public famous creativity.
>
>I think you have confused *art* with *Fine Art* - which is a common
>error.
Do you include traditional not formally trained ethnic artists
in your definition of Fine Art? Which is what your reply to
my post referred to.
Alison A Raimes
<jnst...@prairienet.org> writes
>
>Creativity is a fashionable part of the fine arts in the west at the moment.
>There is ample evidence that it is not particularly important in many
>cultures. One could cite Forge's study of the Abelam in New Guinea; they
>hold tow values in connection to artistic production: correctness and
>power.
>
I'm sorry. I understood, as Danto does, that *creativity* is the ability
to create - to cause to come into existence. Every human being has that.
What does Forge's study have to do with that?
Alison A Raimes
<ransen_sp...@nemo.it> writes
>Do you include traditional not formally trained ethnic artists
>in your definition of Fine Art? Which is what your reply to
>my post referred to.
Can you give me an example of *traditional* and then of *not formally
trained* ethnic artists? I just can't see the relevance of this. Unless
you think indigenous is *traditional*. Maybe we have a language problem?
In my understanding indigenous is *natural* and *traditional* is
learned. that might give you a clue to what I am saying? maybe not
though ;-) No wonder Danto got irritated with such!
Sharon Barcone
"Owen F. Ransen" <ransen_sp...@nemo.it> wrote in message
news:3a0932ed...@news.newsguy.com...
> On Tue, 7 Nov 2000 09:20:22 -0500, "Sharon Barcone"
> <sha...@usadatanet.net> wrote:
>
> >Owen F. Ransen wrote in message <3a06c8a9...@news.newsguy.com>...
> >>Funny you should mention creativity, I am at this very moment
> >>reading "The Creative Mind" by Margaret Boden.
> >Owen, I have heard of this book but have not read it yet. Can you give me
> >some idea of it's premise?
>
> I hate to say what I think after only 3 chapters, but here goes.
>
> She tries to find out about human creativity by seeing if
> it can be modelled with computer artificial intelligence
> programs.
>
> be creative.
>
> One good point she makes is that a creative cook (for
> example) (or a creative engineer or a creative scientist)
> are just as creative as a creative artist. The book
> includes "fine-art" but is not limited by it.
>
> She discounts the "God given creativity" theory.
>
> She thinks that having a prepared mind helps in coming
> up with new ideas. Being skilled in what you do is
> important. Being open is also important.
Thanks for this info. She may be going a bit in the wrong direction for me
but keep me posted on your thoughts on this if you would. Though I agree
creativity may be involved in other fields I wonder more about the flow of
creativity in the arts and painting in particular.
>
> I cannot say more yet, whereof I know nothing, thereof I
> must remain silent.
>
> >But how does the creative process in general affect art in the long term?
> Many flowers bloom and die in the desert unseen, and I
> suspect that there are thousands of creative artists out
> there who will never be known as such because of economic
> or social reasons. So "Fine Art" is affected only by the
> "famous creators" even though they may not be the "most
> creative creators".
Agreed, in fact I would say some well known creators weren't that creative
at all.
>
> >Some artists play off the work of others, not that this is bad. It is
like
> >saying "If I were to paint that I would do it this way." Is that the
> >creative aspect in play or a direct borrowing of someone else's
creativity?
> Personally I never enjoy comedians who get a laugh by
> mimicing famous people. I can see the skill, but it
> seem less creative than inventing situations and jokes.
>
> >>*Sometimes* I think that.
> >What do you think at other times?
> Thinking about it, now, the same! That zillions of people are
> creative. The lucky ones get recognised and paid for that.
> Owen F. Ransen
> http://www.ransen.com/
> Home of Gliftic & Repligator Image Generators
True, we all may have some from of creative energy. Some never get
recognized and some may never find a direction for the energy. But to go
further here, maybe a certain amount of creativity is needed in marketing
that creativity!
Sharon Barcone
"William Engell" <wen...@erie.net> wrote in message
news:t0haolo...@corp.supernews.com...
> > I'm not conversant with Fruedian theory. I agree that the unconscious
can
> be put to work toward some conscious end. For starters, we either decide
to
> have a dialog with it (make art, let's say) or not. But who knows if
that's
> a conscious choice. I'm not trying to make a case for some sort of
> determinism, though I think that people are more determined than most
would
> like to believe. We can fight consciously against the impulses,
facilitate
> thier employment in our lives, or strike a comfortable middle road between
> the extremes.
>
> One thing I'd suggest is that if you're working well, you're probably very
> much in the employ of your unconscious already.
>
> Bill
>
and may have to look for more of his writing on the unconscious mind.
Hear is my thinking...
Danto discusses "the end of art", its beginning end came (Not from the
camera) but with motion pictures. The artist went from copying what the eye
could see to flat space and abstract but could not compete with the moving
picture. I disagree here as some surrealists moved into that medium also.
But be that as it may, the question is have the artists who paint really
reached the end of art. In the last century art movements flew by. Can the
creative painter really come up with anything called new. If not shouldn't
all types of art style be welcomed if they provide a new slant on an old
idea. Danto says certainly there will be whose who continue to make
paintings but not whose who create "new art". Certainly, I think, the
creative painter is capable of going further but I couldn't tell you where.
Dali's late works were like painted colleges in some respects which is an
idea I like and I see some nice mixes of abstract with realism. But Danto
leaves me depressed all the more because he says little about creativity.
Sharon Barcone
> On Tue, 7 Nov 2000 10:13:12 -0500, "Sharon Barcone"
> <sha...@usadatanet.net> wrote:
>
> >Salvador Dali felt that
> >the subconscious could at least be reached and consciously used. Does
> >Freud's work offer and insight to this idea...
> >sharon
>
> Rene Magritte: "Psychoanalysis has nothing to say about works
> of art which evoke the mystery of the world."
>
>
> --
One of Dali's ideas was to sit in a chair holding a spoon over a plate while
supporting your arm on the arm rest of the chair. Fall asleep in this
position and as you do the spoon will drop into the plate and wake you up.
It is a that moment you can catch the fleeting dream image and use it to
create a painting!
I confess. I haven't tried it. And of course this was during his surreal
period.
Sharon Barcone
control
> >of this lil demon. Shall I risk my sanity? Must I? And if I could control
> >the demon would my conscious reduce the demon's effectiveness?
>
> >sharon
>
> Practice your art, keep an open mind, be critical, note down
> ideas as they come to you, that is the best practical way of
> capturing your creativity (or the best way *I* have found so far).
>
> *Sometimes* ideas can be generated, try Edward de Bono's
> "Lateral Thinking" for techniques, should still be in
> print I think.
> --
> Owen F. Ransen
> http://www.ransen.com/
> Home of Gliftic & Repligator Image Generators
Will look for that one. I have had great success finding even out of print
books at barnesandnoble's web site.
Maybe Mani was right, the next great generation of artists will be those who
create graphically on computer.
William Engell
Since I don't define art as being synonymous with any form or forms, it
seems unlikely that art can end, be completed or exhausted. In fact, it
seems only marginally more likely that art expressed through some individual
form, such as painting, would somehow come to an end. Perhaps a stylistic
movement might play out.
It doesn't seem reasonable to me that art require formal innovation to
be contemporarily viable, at least not at some high formal lever. A poet
can work inside a sonnet form and utilize it in an artistic way, not
necessarily having devised the form. A painter can still create art,
despite the burgeoning digital mediums.
Do you suppose that those who assert that this or that art form is dead
or dying are actually saying that it's just not as interesting as it once
was? Too much of anything, after all, and the bloom is off the rose. I
wonder if critics don't become desensitized or jaded and require
increasingly more dramatic variations. They may not like to make small talk
any more. Only magnificent raconteurs will suffice.
I once attended a concert with an acquaintance who was extremely
knowledgeable about jazz. The performers were working in the bebop idiom,
the evening's star being a young alto saxophonist. Their work, while not
scintillating, was certainly interesting, a good job of journey work.
Afterward, my acquaintance said he was disappointed that the band didn't
throw in some new age, folk or traditional stuff, maybe a taste of rag. I
was taken aback by this comment. I've since heard others say similar
things. They seem to require not that the idiom be well used, but that it
be pushed, elaborated, synthesized into a hybrid or directly modified. Now,
bebop is a venerable style, and rarely performed in it's purest original
form these days, but does that mean it's without artistic possibilities? I
hadn't thought so. I'd not like to believe that the idiom became passe
after Parker and Gillespie, et al, firmed up it's parameters, making it
stylistically recognizable.
Could it be that Danto is bored with the level of variation being
produced in painting? Does he believe that we painters are all just
rehashing someone else's painting, incessantly mumbling someone else's
poems? Is there a point when a painter cannot make art by painting? Or,
would an artist, to continue to be an artist, have to stop painting and
begin to do something else, create ionic luminescences in high Earth orbit,
for example? Then how long until that became a dead end? That the artist
consistently change the medium, innovating against the actual form, is a
lot to ask! The problem I have with the death of painting is that I see
paintings which continue to have an affect on me.
Bach still trips my trigger despite the fact that there were people in
this century who insisted that tonality was dead. Now, we know that's not
true! Almost no one is playing serial or 12-tone stuff any more. People
are right back at that nasty old tonality business.
You know, I've read Bergson, Koestler and some Ortega y Gasset on
creativity and come away thinking it more a mystery than ever. (Maybe it's
just me.) I thing we may have to accept that it's an impulse to make
something. It's one of the ways we interface with each other. And,
obviously, some things are more interesting than others. Is it the impulse
to make, or the ability to make interesting that is the creative aspect? Or
is it the ability to set the standard?
And what happens to the poor practitioners of this dead art? Are we
downgraded to craftspersons, or decorative artists, that ultimate damnation
of the arbiters of haut art?
Sharon Barcone wrote in message <3a09f...@news5.newsfeeds.com>...
Erik A. Mattila
> In article <j5eO5.508$ja.174@firefly>, James N. Stewart
> <jnst...@prairienet.org> writes
>
> >
> >Creativity is a fashionable part of the fine arts in the west at the moment.
> >There is ample evidence that it is not particularly important in many
> >cultures. One could cite Forge's study of the Abelam in New Guinea; they
> >hold tow values in connection to artistic production: correctness and
> >power.
> >
>
> I'm sorry. I understood, as Danto does, that *creativity* is the ability
> to create - to cause to come into existence. Every human being has that.
> What does Forge's study have to do with that?
Oh boy - I think we're discovering here that the term 'creative' is a slippery
slope like some of our other favorite terms.
I read James' post as a reference to an idea of creativity (not THE indea, mind
you) that is part and parcel of the discourse of modernism, and the sujbect of
Forge's study shows this not to exist among the Abelam, because they practice
'tratidional' art foms, which involves 'replicating' past forms, rather than
inventing new forms.
So I would say that 'creativity' in modernism looks at a concept of 'invention'
and in Abelamland looks at concepts of 'replication.' But here's the rub - in
the relatively few examples we have of 'collections' of traditional art forms
that span a long period of time - say two or three hundred years - it's common
to see the 'replication' process breakdown, and the collection exhibiting
'invention' over time. Inevitably the artists has his or her say, even under
the strict formalism of traditional art practices. To quote Lao Tsu - "the only
constant is change." It's fascinating to me to consider change that happens
over time that is out of scale with our lifespans - we're seldom even aware of
it, and says something about the role of culture itself as an agent of
creativity.
Erik Mattila
Owen F. Ransen
wrote:
> Bach still trips my trigger despite the fact that there were people in
>this century who insisted that tonality was dead. Now, we know that's not
>true! Almost no one is playing serial or 12-tone stuff any more. People
>are right back at that nasty old tonality business.
Dead right. I am amazed that some of the "modern classical" music
seems to want to annoy rather than please or communicate.
I was also amazed when a famous conductor (cannot remember his name)
spouted the phrase "Everything to be done in music has already
been done by Bach and Beethoven". And then went on to say that
they had covered all the decent combinations of notes possible.
Obviously he'd failed his mathematics class.
Bach for me too is amazing and unendingly interesting. I often
wonder if it would be possible to visually hit the viewer in
the same way that (for me) Bach hits me audibly...? But that
is another thread!
Sharon Barcone
> Let me try a couple things here.
> Since I don't define art as being synonymous with any form or forms,
it
> seems unlikely that art can end, be completed or exhausted. In fact, it
> seems only marginally more likely that art expressed through some
individual
> form, such as painting, would somehow come to an end. Perhaps a stylistic
> movement might play out.
William,
If I am reading Danto correctly (and I confess I am on my second reading of
"The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art" to try to understand him
better) it is the fact that there are no new art movements to come about
that signals this end. All artists are left with is a rehash of the old.
For example this idea of mixing abstract with realism is just a combining of
two earlier movements not a new movement or idea itself.
> It doesn't seem reasonable to me that art require formal innovation to
> be contemporarily viable, at least not at some high formal lever. A poet
> can work inside a sonnet form and utilize it in an artistic way, not
> necessarily having devised the form. A painter can still create art,
> despite the burgeoning digital mediums.
Danto as philosopher looks deeply into the philosophical history of the
philosophy of art and I was depressed after reading this book even though I
disagree with a lot of what he says. He calls Duchamp a genius for his work
"Fountain" which was no more than a urinal laid down. Duchamp presented this
work at near the end of the da-da period. The next book I read was by Kirk
Varnedoe called "A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern". This book
left me much uplifted and I will probably look at all art more open mindedly
as a result of reading it. Varnedoe does touch of the influences and
creativity of the artist and seems to project a future rather than an end to
art. I thank Dan Fox for recommending it to me.
The revolt of the da-da group was exactly against the type of criticism. It
may well be that the digital age will be seen as the new art movement. Where
artists move into a medium that can indeed compete with the motion picture
> Do you suppose that those who assert that this or that art form is
dead
> or dying are actually saying that it's just not as interesting as it once
> was? Too much of anything, after all, and the bloom is off the rose. I
> wonder if critics don't become desensitized or jaded and require
> increasingly more dramatic variations. They may not like to make small
talk
> any more. Only magnificent raconteurs will suffice.
This is why I usually have concentrated on reading artists and not critics
or philosophers.
> I once attended a concert with an acquaintance who was extremely
> knowledgeable about jazz. The performers were working in the bebop idiom,
> the evening's star being a young alto saxophonist. Their work, while not
> scintillating, was certainly interesting, a good job of journey work.
> Afterward, my acquaintance said he was disappointed that the band didn't
> throw in some new age, folk or traditional stuff, maybe a taste of rag. I
> was taken aback by this comment. I've since heard others say similar
> things. They seem to require not that the idiom be well used, but that it
> be pushed, elaborated, synthesized into a hybrid or directly modified.
Now,
> bebop is a venerable style, and rarely performed in it's purest original
> form these days, but does that mean it's without artistic possibilities?
I
> hadn't thought so. I'd not like to believe that the idiom became passe
> after Parker and Gillespie, et al, firmed up it's parameters, making it
> stylistically recognizable.
I confess that I know little of music beyond the listening to what I enjoy
and I do enjoy a wide variety. But it would seem that music too usually fits
somewhere into an established catagory, as rock, country, classical or
crossover and new expressions of old catagories.
> Could it be that Danto is bored with the level of variation being
> produced in painting? Does he believe that we painters are all just
> rehashing someone else's painting, incessantly mumbling someone else's
> poems? Is there a point when a painter cannot make art by painting? Or,
> would an artist, to continue to be an artist, have to stop painting and
> begin to do something else, create ionic luminescences in high Earth
orbit,
> for example? Then how long until that became a dead end? That the artist
> consistently change the medium, innovating against the actual form, is a
> lot to ask! The problem I have with the death of painting is that I see
> paintings which continue to have an affect on me.
I agree with what you say here. I think there are many artists who have a
need for the creative demon to be expressed. I have heard many express a
feeling of being compelled to paint. For me, I was inspired by my dad and
watching him paint and can remember wanting to paint from an early age. When
he passed away I was 16 and I quit all artistic efforts. But I found a few
years later I couldn't give it up so easy. I was drawn back by some inner
need or demon.
And too, there are many who enjoy the arts and wait eagerly to see what
artists will do next. For those two groups the arts will continue and maybe
some new heights will be reached as a result.
> Bach still trips my trigger despite the fact that there were people
in
> this century who insisted that tonality was dead. Now, we know that's not
> true! Almost no one is playing serial or 12-tone stuff any more. People
> are right back at that nasty old tonality business.
> You know, I've read Bergson, Koestler and some Ortega y Gasset on
> creativity and come away thinking it more a mystery than ever. (Maybe
it's
> just me.) I thing we may have to accept that it's an impulse to make
> something. It's one of the ways we interface with each other. And,
> obviously, some things are more interesting than others. Is it the
impulse
> to make, or the ability to make interesting that is the creative aspect?
Or
> is it the ability to set the standard?
> And what happens to the poor practitioners of this dead art? Are we
> downgraded to craftspersons, or decorative artists, that ultimate
damnation
> of the arbiters of haut art?
Truely, is a new art movement the only thing that defines us as artists and
if not then shouldn't we embrace all forms of art as legitimate expressions.
And if this is true will skill, creativity and what we have to say have a
bearing on our success as artists?
These are the questions that have led to my own exploration of creativity as
an aspect of art. Now that I have reached a level where I can at least
express images as I would like them to look and get my idea across to the
viewer, the big question is "What do I have to say?"
Sharon Barcone
> books at barnesandnoble's web site.
>
> Maybe Mani was right, the next great generation of artists will be those
who
> create graphically on computer.
>
pierced
> so deep" -Milton
> sharon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Owen F. Ransen" <ransen_sp...@nemo.it>
To: "Sharon Barcone" <sha...@usadatanet.net>
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 12:53 AM
Subject: Re: Is creativity an important aspect in art?
On Wed, 8 Nov 2000 20:11:17 -0500, in rec.arts.fine you wrote:
>Maybe Mani was right, the next great generation of artists will be those
who
>create graphically on computer.
>sharon
>I am considering making the next version of my image
>generation programs programmable by the artist....i.e.
>deliberately aimed at helping the artist learn how
>to program, easily and simply.
>Is this a good idea?
>
>Would you be interested? I mean in learning to program
>to create images?
>I must have missed something, who is "Mani" ?
Owen,
As for your ideas on computer program ideas, yes I might be interested in
what you suggest. First let me say, there have always been artists
interested in the latest new tools for their work. New mediums for
expression have always held an interest. Some will stick with what they
know. For me, I have wanted a program of some kind that I could use to
create logarithmic spirals. Spirals that grow at the 1.62 (approx.) ratio.
My Coreldraw 7 program will build a spiral but only at a 1.0 ratio. I would
like to build these spirals on the ratio of the golden section. I was a
docent at the Dali museum in St. Pete. Fla. and learned that Dali in his
later works built compositions based to the logarithmic spiral. That is the
source of my desire.
I am not so interested in generating computer graphics as I am interested in
using my computer as a tool for my work on canvas. For example now I often
scan a reference photo into my computer and convert it to gray scale to
analyze to value range and play with different ideas.
As for Mani. He is Mani DeLi. He often posted at r.a.f. carried the by line
"No skill No Art". He was often criticized for holding strong to his
opinions. I personally hold to the phrase of Confucius that "Only wise men
and fools never change their minds" or something like that. Any way he
suggested a short while back that graphic artists may indeed provide that
next new art movement.
Thomas Ziorjen
> [...]
> Do you suppose that those who assert that this or that art form is dead
> or dying are actually saying that it's just not as interesting as it once
> was? Too much of anything, after all, and the bloom is off the rose. I
> wonder if critics don't become desensitized or jaded and require
> increasingly more dramatic variations. They may not like to make small talk
> any more. Only magnificent raconteurs will suffice.
> I once attended a concert with an acquaintance who was extremely
> knowledgeable about jazz. The performers were working in the bebop idiom,
> the evening's star being a young alto saxophonist. Their work, while not
> scintillating, was certainly interesting, a good job of journey work.
> Afterward, my acquaintance said he was disappointed that the band didn't
> throw in some new age, folk or traditional stuff, maybe a taste of rag. I
> was taken aback by this comment. I've since heard others say similar
> things. They seem to require not that the idiom be well used, but that it
> be pushed, elaborated, synthesized into a hybrid or directly modified. Now,
> bebop is a venerable style, and rarely performed in it's purest original
> form these days, but does that mean it's without artistic possibilities? I
> hadn't thought so. I'd not like to believe that the idiom became passe
> after Parker and Gillespie, et al, firmed up it's parameters, making it
> stylistically recognizable.
William, as someone who has soaked up a lot of jazz (and a lot of art) over the
years I now feel, when I hear even well played bebop "Well that's nice, but so
what?". Skillful rearrangement of well understood material is not usually
enough to hold my interest.
I feel the same way about another well painted piece in a well understood form.
If there is so much to explore that I haven't already assimilated, why spend my
time listening to, or looking at reiterations of what I already know well?
That is not to say that there is nothing new to be said with a paintbrush or
trumpet.
Thomas
online portfolio:
http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~sn3222
http://www.egroups.com/group/artlives
http://artlives.homestead.com
Alison A Raimes
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>Oh boy - I think we're discovering here that the term 'creative' is a slippery
>slope like some of our other favorite terms.
Oh boy but I love those slides ..... don't you?
>
>I read James' post as a reference to an idea of creativity (not THE indea, mind
>you) that is part and parcel of the discourse of modernism, and the sujbect of
>Forge's study shows this not to exist among the Abelam, because they practice
>'tratidional' art foms, which involves 'replicating' past forms, rather than
>inventing new forms.
My point was why that reference.
>
>So I would say that 'creativity' in modernism looks at a concept of 'invention'
>and in Abelamland looks at concepts of 'replication.' But here's the rub - in
>the relatively few examples we have of 'collections' of traditional art forms
>that span a long period of time - say two or three hundred years - it's common
>to see the 'replication' process breakdown, and the collection exhibiting
>'invention' over time. Inevitably the artists has his or her say, even under
>the strict formalism of traditional art practices. To quote Lao Tsu - "the only
>constant is change." It's fascinating to me to consider change that happens
>over time that is out of scale with our lifespans - we're seldom even aware of
>it, and says something about the role of culture itself as an agent of
>creativity.
Oh oh, I can't help but bring Baudrillard into this... sorry, Erik. In
fact the essay I am thinking of his is at Ctheory - the idea that we are
now *creating* history. Our awareness of how history develops and the
significance of a very few individuals in it, has become somewhat of a
driving force now for many. Baudrillard studies the closing of the gap
between artist and museum. The museum no longer represents history, but
the making of history right before our eyes. So does that then make this
history artificial? Similarly with Danto who sees the forcing of certain
creativity impulses amongst artists who seek effect. Or even more
relevant is the artist as art - as seen in the likes of Tracey Emin or
Gilbert and George.
Danto was a philosopher. Philosophers don't believe in the *end* of art
or philosophy. What they believe in is the end of art as we have become
accustomed to. If we could step back and see what a tiny time scale this
last century represents and consider that the like of Gombrich have
succeeded in cramming hundreds of years into one small book, perhaps we
could then understand what Danto refers to. Or do the readers of Danto
believe that the only artists throughout history can be found in those
small books. I think not!
William Engell
An aside about Duchamp: I've always felt that Duchamp was a performance
artist. His performance, and it appears to have been life long in duration,
was a portrayal of being an iconoclastic artist. He cultivated his own
mystique and relished his dry, ironical persona, austere and diffident,
dropping his few pearls (the works, his remarks) among us just often enough
to keep his hand in, and his celebrity up.
I believe that most of his objects require context, and that the context
(his life, his work) is more interesting than, and served by, the objects.
Sharon Barcone wrote in message <3a0ac...@news5.newsfeeds.com>...
Sharon Barcone
> Sharon,
> An aside about Duchamp: I've always felt that Duchamp was a
performance
> artist. His performance, and it appears to have been life long in
duration,
> was a portrayal of being an iconoclastic artist. He cultivated his own
> mystique and relished his dry, ironical persona, austere and diffident,
> dropping his few pearls (the works, his remarks) among us just often
enough
> to keep his hand in, and his celebrity up.
> I believe that most of his objects require context, and that the
context
> (his life, his work) is more interesting than, and served by, the objects.
What you say of Duchamp may be true but my objection was against Danto.
The work of the da-da group was meant to show their distain of the art elite
whom they believed were unfit to judge art. Their work was a parody of art
at best and not to be judged as art. The intention was to ridicule the
artsy-fartsies of their day. Neither the urinal or the snow shovel (In
Anticipation of a Broken Arm) were meant to be taken as fine art and Danto
calling Duchamp a genius for this work and it's place in art history is
ludicrious. If anything Danto proves the da-daists were right.
William Engell
I suspect you may have over-synopsized the dada movement members
individual intents, but in general, it seems that there was a sense of
tossing incongruencies into the face of those systematizing, developing
canon. Actually, I think we should have a great deal of empathy with the
writers and pundits. Whatever their motives are, they are smitten with art
(or, in some cases, the "art world") and are attempting to create a
non-artistic mode of dealing with it. They want to be involved. They're
smitten too. But, I'm in favor of anything that makes depredations against
those who take themselves too seriously, artists and writers. What's more,
I've never seen absolute truth on paper, either 140# coldpressed or
Hammermill bond.
There's no Danto at our local library, so I've got some inter-library
loan things going. When I get the material, I suppose I'll figure out
whether he's in the preflatulent inflation of the congenitally
authoritative, or whether he's just poking around like a good researcher.
No problem with the latter, at all.
Here's a question: What value did Duchamp bring to art? (I don't
intend the question ironically.) Did he relieve us of the burden of
critical fatuousness? (Couldn't be that; it's still with us.) Did he pave
the way for stylistic pluralism in practice?
Sharon Barcone wrote in message <3a0dc...@news5.newsfeeds.com>...
>
>"William Engell" <wen...@erie.net> wrote in message
>news:t0mq8b7...@corp.supernews.com...
>> Sharon,
>> An aside about Duchamp: I've always felt that Duchamp was a
>performance
>> artist. His performance, and it appears to have been life long in
>duration,
>> was a portrayal of being an iconoclastic artist. He cultivated his own
>> mystique and relished his dry, ironical persona, austere and diffident,
>> dropping his few pearls (the works, his remarks) among us just often
>enough
>> to keep his hand in, and his celebrity up.
>> I believe that most of his objects require context, and that the
>context
>> (his life, his work) is more interesting than, and served by, the
objects.
>
>What you say of Duchamp may be true but my objection was against Danto.
>The work of the da-da group was meant to show their distain of the art
elite
>whom they believed were unfit to judge art. Their work was a parody of art
>at best and not to be judged as art. The intention was to ridicule the
>artsy-fartsies of their day. Neither the urinal or the snow shovel (In
>Anticipation of a Broken Arm) were meant to be taken as fine art and Danto
>calling Duchamp a genius for this work and it's place in art history is
>ludicrious. If anything Danto proves the da-daists were right.
>
Alison A Raimes
<sha...@usadatanet.net> writes
>What you say of Duchamp may be true but my objection was against Danto.
>The work of the da-da group was meant to show their distain of the art elite
>whom they believed were unfit to judge art. Their work was a parody of art
>at best and not to be judged as art.
This is way off the mark. Dada started in Zurich where the exiles
gathered to escape the war. Think about it - they were the bourgeoisie
themselves. How do you think they could afford to be there? And
consequently, Dada was a plaything to them. Within a very short time
they had declared art dead and then resurrected it in another form so
similar to the dead one its absurd. *They* became the elite - their
*soirees* their shows of playful ridicule. They attracted the
bourgeoisie because of the very nature of their performances - the rich
love to be made fun off. That is why those who started the movement
split and left the Zurich Dada to play its new game - the old one.
Danto recognised a much stronger stance in Duchamp's gesture - not as
superficial as the Dada games. Duchamp was not a rich kid amusing
himself, like the Zurich Dada group. And consequently Duchamp has had a
far greater impact on art than Dada ever did.
--
Erik A. Mattila
> This is way off the mark. Dada started in Zurich where the exiles
> gathered to escape the war. Think about it - they were the bourgeoisie
> themselves. How do you think they could afford to be there? And
> consequently, Dada was a plaything to them. Within a very short time
> they had declared art dead and then resurrected it in another form so
> similar to the dead one its absurd. *They* became the elite - their
> *soirees* their shows of playful ridicule. They attracted the
> bourgeoisie because of the very nature of their performances - the rich
> love to be made fun off. That is why those who started the movement
> split and left the Zurich Dada to play its new game - the old one.
>
> Danto recognised a much stronger stance in Duchamp's gesture - not as
> superficial as the Dada games. Duchamp was not a rich kid amusing
> himself, like the Zurich Dada group. And consequently Duchamp has had a
> far greater impact on art than Dada ever did.
Nom njit goo ta doo lum blaggerweisen!!!!
Hooffey waigh la togudosplongen!!!
Dada Fluup?
Erik
Alison A Raimes
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
]
>Nom njit goo ta doo lum blaggerweisen!!!!
>
>Hooffey waigh la togudosplongen!!!
>
>Dada Fluup?
>
>Erik
>
tghijsz,. IJ am typijngh aned ijt ijsz aededijngh ledttedrsz ijn,.
]
]No shit,. Erik,. since I dropped water in my laptop, this is how it
types (above) - this version I had to edit all the extra letters out of.>
Alison
http://www.raimes.com
http://artlives.homestead.com
Sharon Barcone
"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote in message
news:3A0E8DB1...@tomatoweb.com...
> Alison A Raimes wrote:
>
> > This is way off the mark. Dada started in Zurich where the exiles
> > gathered to escape the war. Think about it - they were the bourgeoisie
> > themselves. How do you think they could afford to be there? And
> > consequently, Dada was a plaything to them. Within a very short time
> > they had declared art dead and then resurrected it in another form so
> > similar to the dead one its absurd. *They* became the elite - their
> > *soirees* their shows of playful ridicule. They attracted the
> > bourgeoisie because of the very nature of their performances - the rich
> > love to be made fun off. That is why those who started the movement
> > split and left the Zurich Dada to play its new game - the old one.
I stick to my point Dada was never intended to be fine art.
> >
> > Danto recognised a much stronger stance in Duchamp's gesture - not as
> > superficial as the Dada games. Duchamp was not a rich kid amusing
> > himself, like the Zurich Dada group. And consequently Duchamp has had a
> > far greater impact on art than Dada ever did.
Danto calls Duchamp a genius for a urinal and a snow shovel and a timely
statement. I find much more genius in his manefesto of surrealism.
>
> Nom njit goo ta doo lum blaggerweisen!!!!
>
> Hooffey waigh la togudosplongen!!!
>
> Dada Fluup?
>
> Erik
>
>
Eric, please translate.
Sharon Barcone
As I said I am on my second reading of Danto. He is a philosopher of great
ability I am sure but he left me rather depressed. I am not sure I can agree
with the premise he puts forth. He refers to Plato's Republic a great deal
so I am now about half through the reading of that. This is a great deal to
thought to process and I may come out on the other end feeling differently.
I would be interested on your take on Danto once you have digested him.
It does seem to me that putting Duchamp in the genius category while
ignoring the others in the Dada group is the kind of criticism the group
originally opposed.
"William Engell" <wen...@erie.net> wrote in message
news:t0rnhpl...@corp.supernews.com...
> Here's a question: What value did Duchamp bring to art? (I don't
> intend the question ironically.) Did he relieve us of the burden of
> critical fatuousness? (Couldn't be that; it's still with us.) Did he
pave
> the way for stylistic pluralism in practice?
I believe Duchamp's greater contribution lies in the surrealist movement,
the effects of which can still be seen today. The creative and imaginative
use of the mind at it's best. Stylistic pluralism may have come about
without Duchamp. Where else could artists go that hasn't already been
touched. We can work in reality or it's opposite or combine the two. This
may be part of Danto's point and he may wish to give artists a kick in the
pants to come up with something to impress him. And I am aware that this
also may over simplify what is a complex subject.
Thomas Ziorjen
> [...]
> Here's a question: What value did Duchamp bring to art? (I don't
> intend the question ironically.) Did he relieve us of the burden of
> critical fatuousness? (Couldn't be that; it's still with us.) Did he pave
> the way for stylistic pluralism in practice?
Goes way beyond stylistic considerations William. Duchamp built the foundation
for the entire conceptual wing of 20th C. art. When he mounted the bicycle
wheel on the stool in 1913, or signed the bottle rack in 1914, he was saying
that craftsmanship, and aesthetics (what he called "the retinal") are no
longer important. That what is important is what goes on in the artist's
mind, and the minds of the viewers. It took until the mid to late 1950's for
these ideas to reach their full impact on the art world, but when they did,
notably in the work of Johns & Rauschenberg, they sparked a revolution that
lead to Pop, Minimalism, Conceptual art, Fluxus, Installation...
--
Alison A Raimes
<sha...@usadatanet.net> writes
>I stick to my point Dada was never intended to be fine art.
And the point is not what was intended but what was the result. As the
last debate on Dada demonstrated, your knowledge of the movement could
exist on a pinhead. You even acknowledged this. I gave you a list of
books to read outside your limited A to Z of art book and directed you
to the manifestos of the original Zurich Dada movement. Have you read
them?
Intentions are all well and good - results are the measure of their
strength.
>Danto calls Duchamp a genius for a urinal and a snow shovel and a timely
>statement. I find much more genius in his manefesto of surrealism.
The irony of this statement is that you represent everything Danto
rejects. You have tunnel vision. You've made your decision and nothing
will move you.
Danto's philosophy is centred around the relationships in art that
object to the isolation and the idolisation of movements such as
Surrealism. Duchamp broke a mould. Danto's philosophy also depends on
the acceptance of the reader to understand that thoughts and opinions
change with experience, and time. If you *stick to a point*
(particularly one you are unable to argue) then you represent the very
essence of what he rejects.
This entire thread is a classic illustration of someone dipping into
philosophy without a basic understanding of it. A bit like the Sunday
painting brigade. Before you can challenge a philosophy, you first have
to understand where it emerged from. A reading of Plato is a waste of
time. Plato is so integrated into Western philosophy that unless you are
a specialist student of philosophy, a reading of Descartes and
Wittgenstein would serve much better if you are to understand Danto. Not
until you have done that should you even attempt to challenge him.
>Eric, please translate.
I rest my case !
Thomas Ziorjen
>
> Eric, please translate.
>
Heh heh. Back to the books Sharon.
Thomas
William Engell
Thomas Ziorjen wrote in message <3A0ED896...@sunshine.net>...
>Goes way beyond stylistic considerations William. Duchamp built the
foundation
>for the entire conceptual wing of 20th C. art. When he mounted the bicycle
>wheel on the stool in 1913, or signed the bottle rack in 1914, he was
saying
>that craftsmanship, and aesthetics (what he called "the retinal") are no
>longer important. That what is important is what goes on in the artist's
>mind, and the minds of the viewers. It took until the mid to late 1950's
for
>these ideas to reach their full impact on the art world, but when they did,
>notably in the work of Johns & Rauschenberg, they sparked a revolution that
>lead to Pop, Minimalism, Conceptual art, Fluxus, Installation...
>Thomas
I can see that.
So are we talking here about expanding the conceptual context of art,
freeing it from the constraint of accepted forms (and styles) by placing the
significance not in the object, but in the reason the object was made, or
its sociological or philosophical underpinnings?
William Engell
Your dada was so funny, yo mama herniated.
Erik A. Mattila wrote in message <3A0F34ED...@tomatoweb.com>...
>Alison A Raimes wrote:
>
>> In article <3A0E8DB1...@tomatoweb.com>, Erik A. Mattila
>> <emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>> ]
>> >Nom njit goo ta doo lum blaggerweisen!!!!
>> >
>> >Hooffey waigh la togudosplongen!!!
>> >
>> >Dada Fluup?
>> >
>> >Erik
>> >
>> Gedy tghat ijsz wghat my kedyboared ijsz edoijngh,. GHednuijned
>> tghijsz,. IJ am typijngh aned ijt ijsz aededijngh ledttedrsz ijn,.
>> ]
>> ]No shit,. Erik,. since I dropped water in my laptop, this is how it
>> types (above) - this version I had to edit all the extra letters out of.>
>
>You mean my dada was so funny you dropped your water on your keyboard? I'm
>flattered.
>
>Erik
>
>
Thomas Ziorjen
>
> I can see that.
> So are we talking here about expanding the conceptual context of art,
> freeing it from the constraint of accepted forms (and styles) by placing the
> significance not in the object, but in the reason the object was made, or
> its sociological or philosophical underpinnings?
Yes, absolutely. And very well stated.
Erik A. Mattila
Erik A. Mattila
For reasons not understood, I can't see any of your posts on this
newsgroup. I have no idea why. So I'm responding indirectly through
Thomas, our transmediun,
But the translation: It's simply my translation of the corpus of dadist
writing. So it was also a challenge to what Alison was saying. I'm
sure she got it since the punctuation was so transparent, and because
she responded with an even greater challenge, to which I copped out with
a miserable attempt at humor, which is really too meaningful for dada,
but ok for surrealism.
Here's a really neato website:
http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/collection.htm
Don't worry if you can't read Hungarian, French or German - that would
spoil the message anyway (which is concealed between the letter -
exactly where DuChump found it.)
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
> Erik,
> Your dada was so funny, yo mama herniated.
Har, har, har
See! That's what's so charming about dada - you can just let go. Those draft
dodgers in Zurich were not much more than kids, full of iconoclasm and probably
a great deal of fear - transfixed with a morbid sense of uncertainty. A great
release - a breakdown - a fracture - anything goes as long as it's pointless.
I think Sir Realism came along and organized them, sort of a Humpty Dumpty
thing.
I think dada would be a great psychotherapy. Did you ever read Greil Marcus'
"Lipstick Traces" (secret history from Zurich to the Sex Pistols)? Highly
recommended. Come to think of it, somewhere in there the great world tree of
modernity branched off - one staying in art and the other into pop culture.
Postmodernism may be nothing more that our brachiating from one branch to the
other, as Marcus does in his book.
Erik
Alison A Raimes
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>You mean my dada was so funny you dropped your water on your keyboard? I'm
>flattered.
>
>Erik
Had a conversation on Mirc with someone who knows me rather well ;-)
using *that* keyboard - within a couple of minutes we were both writing
the same way and holding what could almost be called, a *conversation*.
That is why Dada failed ....
Alison A Raimes
<thomas_...@sunshine.net> writes
>Goes way beyond stylistic considerations William. Duchamp built the foundation
>for the entire conceptual wing of 20th C. art. When he mounted the bicycle
>wheel on the stool in 1913, or signed the bottle rack in 1914, he was saying
>that craftsmanship, and aesthetics (what he called "the retinal") are no
>longer important. That what is important is what goes on in the artist's
>mind, and the minds of the viewers. It took until the mid to late 1950's for
>these ideas to reach their full impact on the art world, but when they did,
>notably in the work of Johns & Rauschenberg, they sparked a revolution that
>lead to Pop, Minimalism, Conceptual art, Fluxus, Installation...
Yes exactly, Thomas. Very well put.
Sharon expresses an inability to place herself in the historical context
of Duchamps work and then to recognise that the work of a genius is seen
in its ability to sustain changes in ideas. Like Mani, her mind is
already set based on what she thinks she knows. When that happens you
become nothing but a parrot. Once you think you know something and start
*sticking to your guns* then philosophy becomes obsolete. The idea of
philosophy is to push those thoughts further - to challenge them and
test them under as many conditions as you can. Nothing is set in stone
in philosophy. Danto's interest in the marriage of art and philosophy in
contemporary art is fascinating and Suzi Gablik really does do a very
good job of picking it up and discussing the need for a change in
attitudes if art is to progress in *The Reenchantment of Art*.
I tend to think our problem lies in our accessibility to art history -
and of course to the multitude of opinions forced on us. Most people
read a basic art history book and take it as gospel. Artists rarely
accept anything without investigation. Maybe that is the clue in this
thread?
Sharon Barcone
divine province.
sharon
"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote in message
news:3A0F3AB0...@tomatoweb.com...
Sharon Barcone
"never can true reconcilement grow, where wounds of deadly hate have
pierced so deep" -Milton
sharon
"Thomas Ziorjen" <thomas_...@sunshine.net> wrote in message
news:3A0EF913...@sunshine.net...
> Sharon Barcone wrote:
>
> >
> > Eric, please translate.
> >
>
> Heh heh. Back to the books Sharon.
>
>
> Thomas
>
>
>
>
Sharon Barcone
> So are we talking here about expanding the conceptual context of art,
> freeing it from the constraint of accepted forms (and styles) by placing
the
> significance not in the object, but in the reason the object was made, or
> its sociological or philosophical underpinnings?
>
the god-like governors and reduces women to common property with their
greatest value being in their genes. Those with the best genetic qualities
to be mated with the best genetic males and the offspring of those with
inferior quality should disappear from the state.
Alison A Raimes
"Sharon Barcone" <sha...@usadatanet.net> wrote:
> Is it any wonder that Danto turns to Plato? Plato sets up
philosophers as
> the god-like governors and reduces women to common property with their
> greatest value being in their genes. Those with the best genetic
qualities
> to be mated with the best genetic males and the offspring of those
with
> inferior quality should disappear from the state.
Oh god - 24 hours into reading Plato she now thinks she has mastered
him! Gopd help us now.
Best to go back and read the Bible - and then perhaps you will find
out where all that stuff of Plato's came from ;-)
Alison A Raimes
ali...@raimes.com
http://www.raimes.com
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Alison A Raimes
yes Thomas, have you read Plato today? You too could be as well
informed as Sharon ;-)
Alison A Raimes
some
> divine province.
>
> sharon
I would imagine someone like Sharon would not want to read me because
she might have to actually justify her *stands* . And I don't think she
has a hope in hell of doing that up against me ;-)
Some people are better in ignorant darkness .....
Sharon Barcone
"Alison A Raimes" <ali...@raimes.com> wrote in message
news:8up6mb$3kf$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Gee, It's amazing! I suddenly am getting Alison's posts.
I have no trouble at all admitting that I don't know every thing and resort
to books in search of knowledge. And you are right Alison, I do not stand a
snowball's chance in hell in defending or justifying my "stands" against you
who are so much wiser and knowledgeable than lowly I. I can only try to
improve myself in those disgusting books.
Erik A. Mattila
> In article <3a100...@news5.newsfeeds.com>,
> "Sharon Barcone" <sha...@usadatanet.net> wrote:
> > It's ok Eric, for some reason I don't get Alison's either. Must be
> some
> > divine province.
> >
> > sharon
Yet Alison loves you enough to respond to yours, allowing me to read yours
to me. How meanderful! The lord works in strange ways.
But one of your posts did appear in my newsreader - your response to
Engell, begining "Is it any wonder that Danto turns to Plato?" I wonder
what's going on? I mean think about it from the divine intervention
angle: You can't read Alison's, I can't read yours - yet Alison's
response of yours to me allows me to read yours, which then allows you to
respond to Alison's. We're getting very close to the enigmatic divide
between dada and surrealism, gently nudged by the great professor in the
sky.
>
> I would imagine someone like Sharon would not want to read me because
> she might have to actually justify her *stands* . And I don't think she
> has a hope in hell of doing that up against me ;-)
That's a motivational challenge, Ali. Good work!
> Some people are better in ignorant darkness .....
Yeah, Joseph Conrad, for example...
musingly, Erik
>
>
> Alison A Raimes
> ali...@raimes.com
> http://www.raimes.com
>
Alison A Raimes
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>That's a motivational challenge, Ali. Good work!
>
Experience tells me it is misdirected ;-)
>
>Yeah, Joseph Conrad, for example...
>
God yes. I'll go for an apocalypse any day, especially if it wakes a few
sleepers up!
Thomas Ziorjen
> In article <3a100...@news5.newsfeeds.com>,
> "Sharon Barcone" <sha...@usadatanet.net> wrote:
> > And where do you do your research Thomas?
>
> yes Thomas, have you read Plato today? You too could be as well
> informed as Sharon ;-)
>
>
I can't Alison, I'm busy reading Newton so I can get my vcr
working.
--
Sharon Barcone
"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote in message > Yet Alison
loves you enough to respond to yours, allowing me to read yours
> to me. How meanderful! The lord works in strange ways.
>
> But one of your posts did appear in my newsreader - your response to
> Engell, begining "Is it any wonder that Danto turns to Plato?" I wonder
> what's going on? I mean think about it from the divine intervention
> angle: You can't read Alison's, I can't read yours - yet Alison's
> response of yours to me allows me to read yours, which then allows you to
> respond to Alison's. We're getting very close to the enigmatic divide
> between dada and surrealism, gently nudged by the great professor in the
> sky.
>
Good thought Erik, and I thought is was the ghost in the machine. And I
actually got two of what's her names posts after I wrote that. Be carefull
what you wish for, I guess.
a-musingly sharon
> >
> > I would imagine someone like Sharon would not want to read me because
> > she might have to actually justify her *stands* . And I don't think she
> > has a hope in hell of doing that up against me ;-)
>
> That's a motivational challenge, Ali. Good work!
>
> > Some people are better in ignorant darkness .....
>
> Yeah, Joseph Conrad, for example...
>
> musingly, Erik
Alison A Raimes
<sha...@usadatanet.net> writes
>Good thought Erik, and I thought is was the ghost in the machine. And I
>actually got two of what's her names posts after I wrote that. Be carefull
>what you wish for, I guess.
>
>a-musingly sharon
>
I guess she hasn't quite got enough up top to figure out that I am
posting through two newsreaders. Maybe she will wish for a brain next.
Alison A Raimes
<thomas_...@sunshine.net> writes
>
>I can't Alison, I'm busy reading Newton so I can get my vcr
>working.
Well that would have kept you busy for half an hour then ;-)
Sharon Barcone
> philosophers as
> > the god-like governors and reduces women to common property with their
> > greatest value being in their genes. Those with the best genetic
> qualities
> > to be mated with the best genetic males and the offspring of those
> with
> > inferior quality should disappear from the state.
>
>
> Oh god - 24 hours into reading Plato she now thinks she has mastered
> him! Gopd help us now.
>
> Best to go back and read the Bible - and then perhaps you will find
> out where all that stuff of Plato's came from ;-)
>
>
Actually Ali I have read the Bible cover to cover three times and I don't
see your point.
And since Danto cites Plato so often it is such a dumb move for me to go
there to further my understanding of Danto? And by the way it's days not
hours into "Republic".
Danto calls Duchamp a genius specifically for his urinal. And after it was
stolen Duchamp simply went out and bought seven more of the things. My idea
of genius is somewhat different I guess. And I think the genius of Duchamp
lies elsewhere. Not to mention that Danto mentions dada only once in the
entire book and the surrealists only twice.
Well obviously dear, I can't match your knowledge and intelligence but I for
one would not care to be a citizen of Plato's state where men decide for
women and send them to the birthing bed. True he gives them equal status in
the job market but only with the understanding that they are weaker than
men. And forget an individuals hopes and dreams as they are not relevant in
his "just" republic. I am nearly done with Plato and confess I may not ever
master him as well as you have. That's my problem not yours!
"never can true reconcilement grow, where wounds of deadly hate have
pierced so deep" -Milton
sharon
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
Alison A Raimes
<sha...@usadatanet.net> writes
>Actually Ali I have read the Bible cover to cover three times and I don't
>see your point.
The name is Alison, for the records. My friends call me Ali and I am
very choosy about them.
I am surprised at your reaction to the Bible. How can you not see the
point? In the Bible it contains the very foundation of Plato's
philosophies and in all Western civilisation. For thousands of years it
has been the basis for oppression and repression. Are you blind to the
passages that degenerate women? Why do you think woman have had the vote
for less than a century? Plato is nothing more than one of its victims -
just like the vast majority of the male Western civilisation.
If you think you have mastered Plato enough in a few days then you fail
to take into account all the philosophies and arguments that had such an
impact on our cultures. And in that you fail to see why Danto references
Plato so often. You might well want to consider that Danto references
Descartes and Wittgenstein as often as Plato and turn your attention
there now (now that you have conquered Plato).
>And since Danto cites Plato so often it is such a dumb move for me to go
>there to further my understanding of Danto? And by the way it's days not
>hours into "Republic".
That is a good start. Which part are you at? The idea of *Utopia*? The
search for *justice*? The questions of pure philosophy? His interest in
science? His views on education? or mathematics?
And you are right. Plato's world was not one that we would want to be
part of ........ and yet every single one of us is.
Alison A Raimes.
fc...@cme.com
Thomas Ziorjen <thomas_...@sunshine.net> wrote:
> William Engell wrote:
>
> > [...]
> > Do you suppose that those who assert that this or that art form
is dead
> > or dying are actually saying that it's just not as interesting as
it once
> > was? Too much of anything, after all, and the bloom is off the
rose. I
> > wonder if critics don't become desensitized or jaded and require
> > increasingly more dramatic variations. They may not like to make
small talk
> > any more. Only magnificent raconteurs will suffice.
> > I once attended a concert with an acquaintance who was extremely
> > knowledgeable about jazz. The performers were working in the bebop
idiom,
snip
> > hadn't thought so. I'd not like to believe that the idiom became
passe
> > after Parker and Gillespie, et al, firmed up it's parameters,
making it
> > stylistically recognizable.
>
> William, as someone who has soaked up a lot of jazz (and a lot of
art) over the
> years I now feel, when I hear even well played bebop "Well that's
nice, but so
> what?". Skillful rearrangement of well understood material is not
usually
> enough to hold my interest.
>
> I feel the same way about another well painted piece in a well
understood form.
>
> If there is so much to explore that I haven't already assimilated,
why spend my
> time listening to, or looking at reiterations of what I already know
well?
>
> That is not to say that there is nothing new to be said with a
paintbrush or
> trumpet.
>
Hi,
I just wanted to say I agree with William's point about art becoming
passe. It just isn't right. If Monet was alive and still painting
would his waterlilies glisten the less? Just because we may be bored
with the idiom doesn't mean it isn't beautiful. It is human nature to
become bored and I don't really disagree with Thomas. I've been bored
by good music before but I've been playing some Harry Belafonte at
Carnegie Hall lately. It's wonderful. Harry never got boring, I just
got bored.
I think it is the same way with all art. We just move on looking for
the latest thing and we don't see the artists that are picking up where
the masters left off.
Frank Cote
> Thomas
>
> online portfolio:
> http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~sn3222
>
> http://www.egroups.com/group/artlives
> http://artlives.homestead.com
>
>
Alison A Raimes
>Hi,
>
>I just wanted to say I agree with William's point about art becoming
>passe. It just isn't right. If Monet was alive and still painting
>would his waterlilies glisten the less? Just because we may be bored
>with the idiom doesn't mean it isn't beautiful. It is human nature to
>become bored and I don't really disagree with Thomas. I've been bored
>by good music before but I've been playing some Harry Belafonte at
>Carnegie Hall lately. It's wonderful. Harry never got boring, I just
>got bored.
I am just having a lot of problems with this. If we can try and put
ourselves in the historical context, instead of reading art as a thin
book, isn't it likely that all *eras* got bored? It is easy to look back
through the history books and say that is was all very exciting and
didn't things keep *buzzing*, but the truth is we have reduced history
to a few pages - a couple of hours reading. What is happening is that
our perceptions of beauty are changing. We are challenging our
preconceived ideas and notions and starting to refuse to accept them as
the norm. It has taken over a century, which is but a tiny speck of
history, and the outcome is not something we will ever know about.
Boredom is our creation. It is our job to defy it.
fc...@cme.com
Alison A Raimes <alis...@SPAMraimes.com> wrote:
>
>
> Boredom is our creation. It is our job to defy it.
Well said. We are fickle both as creators and as viewers of art.
But what about beauty?
I don't like the emphasis of new over beauty. I want both. I want to
see some new art that blows me away. I want to see something that
makes me want to go home and paint and at the same time makes me want
to break my brushes because I'll never be that good.
OK, I want a lot.
But, the closest I've come to that lately hasn't been anything in a
modern genre. It's been artists like Richard Schmid and others.
I guess to sum it up I'm bored with NEW. I'm tired of new for its own
sake.
Now I want beauty.
Frank
> --
> Alison A Raimes
> http://www.raimes.com
> http://artlives.homestead.com
>
Alison A Raimes
fc...@cme.com wrote:
> Well said. We are fickle both as creators and as viewers of art.
> But what about beauty?
> I don't like the emphasis of new over beauty. I want both. I want to
> see some new art that blows me away. I want to see something that
> makes me want to go home and paint and at the same time makes me want
> to break my brushes because I'll never be that good.
> OK, I want a lot.
> But, the closest I've come to that lately hasn't been anything in a
> modern genre. It's been artists like Richard Schmid and others.
>
> I guess to sum it up I'm bored with NEW. I'm tired of new for its own
> sake.
> Now I want beauty.
And so do many, many others. It is perhaps a valuable turning point in
the art world that so many crave *beauty* - but it is the past they
crave. Our perceptions of beauty are for ever changing and that is what
we are faced with in today's art. Nothing new in that. What was
beautiful to Giotto was not beautiful to Caravaggio. And craving for
the past is nothing new either. But today's masters are those who can
address the changes and draw from the past while still bringing
something unique to the art world.
Mostly I get *blown away* by installation work here in London. Very
little in the way of painting will grab me anymore. Susan Hiller's work
leaves me breathless and hungry for more. As does the video work of the
Wilson twins. Bill Viola's *The Messenger* will be forever ingrained in
my memory as the most moving experience of my life, and Cornelia
Parker's work continues to stun and intrigue me. there are many more
too.
There is beauty in all their work - in the aesthetics and in the
intellect. And also a kind of fear. To find beauty you have to stop
continually longing for a beauty of the past and recognise what is
beautiful today. For the artist that means discarding sentimental
longings for an art that will never again be and greeting the new with
all the force of a society in which newness is intrinsic to our needs.
It needs work and focus and a mind that knows that to live in the past
will bring nothing but frustration and eventual boredom.
Owen F. Ransen
>I don't like the emphasis of new over beauty. I want both.
And I agree with you, that is the true discipline of good
art I suspect...
>Frank
Owen
--
Owen F. Ransen
http://www.ransen.com/
Home of Gliftic & Repligator Image Generators
Alison A Raimes
<ransen_sp...@nemo.it> writes
>On Fri, 17 Nov 2000 13:53:32 GMT, fc...@cme.com wrote:
>
>>I don't like the emphasis of new over beauty. I want both.
>And I agree with you, that is the true discipline of good
>art I suspect...
How can you agree with it if you can't identify what beauty is? In fact,
that is a challenge to everyone.
Describe beauty.
--
fc...@cme.com
I just can't accept that. As an artist I look at everything but I
follow my heart not my head. And don't assume I'm only blow away by
antiques. Pollock and Rothko are wonderful but as an artist I'm not
drawn to produce anything in those genres. They seem complete to me.
Like Bernini and the Baroque movement.
To me most "modern" art movements seem complete now. But that's me.
I'm not saying what anyone else should create. I've just got to follow
my visions. Believe me, if I woke up with a fabulous abstract vision
I'd slap it down on canvas in a heartbeat.
So, I don't want to come down on your visions. You've got to follow
your own destiny with your art. I've seen your art and I like it.
Making art is hard enough without artists sniping at each other.
Frank
"You've got to follow that dream wherever that dream may lead you"
Elvis Presley
> Alison A Raimes
> http://www.raimes.com
> http://artlives.homestead.com
>
Alison A Raimes
>I just can't accept that. As an artist I look at everything but I
>follow my heart not my head. And don't assume I'm only blow away by
>antiques. Pollock and Rothko are wonderful but as an artist I'm not
>drawn to produce anything in those genres. They seem complete to me.
>Like Bernini and the Baroque movement.
>To me most "modern" art movements seem complete now. But that's me.
>I'm not saying what anyone else should create. I've just got to follow
>my visions. Believe me, if I woke up with a fabulous abstract vision
>I'd slap it down on canvas in a heartbeat.
>So, I don't want to come down on your visions. You've got to follow
>your own destiny with your art. I've seen your art and I like it.
>Making art is hard enough without artists sniping at each other.
>
>Frank
Ah yes, there is that famous ignorant *I know what I like* routine. A
perfect example of someone not prepared to open their mind and take a
second look. I bet you even read that art is dead and believe it! Too
bad you lost the plot. You are forever destined to being bored with art.
You might as well, give up and truck out .... you clearly need someone
else's ideas to produce art. That is what happens when the heart is an
excuse for not making the mind work. Hard luck! Of course, if you want
to change that, try and describe what beauty is and be ready to be
amazed at the art you will discover.
Having said that, I'm ready with my dollar bills ....... I'm not
expecting one single person here to be able to describe *beauty*.
--
fc...@cme.com
Alison A Raimes <alis...@SPAMraimes.com> wrote:
> perfect example of someone not prepared to open their mind and take a
> second look. I bet you even read that art is dead and believe it! Too
> bad you lost the plot. You are forever destined to being bored with
art.
> You might as well, give up and truck out .... you clearly need someone
> else's ideas to produce art. That is what happens when the heart is an
> excuse for not making the mind work. Hard luck! Of course, if you
want
> to change that, try and describe what beauty is and be ready to be
> amazed at the art you will discover.
>
> Having said that, I'm ready with my dollar bills ....... I'm not
> expecting one single person here to be able to describe *beauty*.
>
Oh fabulous! What a bitch out!
And after I said nice things about your work.
By the way, don't you know what you like? Well, I'm not going to
belittle you for it. How else do you know when the painting is done?
Believe me I've looked and looked and looked at art. I've been looking
my whole life and I'm coming up on 50.
I'm not bored by art I'm just bored by "new" art. Art that is new for
the sake of being new. Clever art. Witty art. Art with no heart.
Boring.
All the greats painted with their hearts. Art takes courage. Courage
takes heart.
As for describing beauty, why? I love to feel it. I'd love to make it.
You describe it. (translation: tag you're it)
Frank
> --
> Alison A Raimes
> http://www.raimes.com
> http://artlives.homestead.com
>
Alison A Raimes
>Oh fabulous! What a bitch out!
>And after I said nice things about your work.
Ah yes, what you would really like is everyone to agree with you, then
you can all sit around satisfied that things are indeed *nice* and that
all this *new* art is boring. But none of you will have ever thought
about it. Nice things! Good god man, doesn't that exactly sum it all up.
And do you think because you are favourable about my work that I should
agree with all you say? What has my work got to do with this thread? Are
you trying to influence my responses?
>By the way, don't you know what you like? Well, I'm not going to
>belittle you for it. How else do you know when the painting is done?
>Believe me I've looked and looked and looked at art. I've been looking
>my whole life and I'm coming up on 50.
>
Really? I thought you would be a lot older. You sound so bogged down in
the past like Mani. And no, I don't always know what I like. I change my
mind about artists very often because I am prepared to look at
contemporary art with the eyes it needs - open and constantly aware of
the circumstances in which it was made. Constantly challenged by art -
new art and old - I can come out of the National Gallery just as
confused as when I come out of the Institute for Contemporary Art
sometimes. I prefer to feel confused and challenged than the robot
feeling of accepting something is good because I have been told so ...
or not.
I'm not convinced that you have looked at contemporary art. Why don't
you give us a critical review of the art you have seen that has *bored*
you? Then we can have a sensible discussion about the aesthetics, the
philosophy and the making of the art that you are so bored with.
>I'm not bored by art I'm just bored by "new" art. Art that is new for
>the sake of being new. Clever art. Witty art. Art with no heart.
>Boring.
>All the greats painted with their hearts. Art takes courage. Courage
>takes heart.
It certainly does and if you could see the circumstances and conditions
that young artists have to contend with then you might understand that
only the strong survive. You sound confused though because I have
pointed you to some magnificent art and you haven't been able to
comment. Why don't you clarify all this - I am starting to think that
you are a lover of myths and that perhaps you don't really have a grip
on what art is about. What was the last contemporary art show you
visited?
Millions of people flood through the Tate Modern in London - some of
them are just there to be seen; some are there to say they have been
there; and amongst them are people who have a genuine interest in
today's art. They debate it, they analyse it and they are challenged by
it. But it is a very small proportion of the total that pass through
that building.
>
>As for describing beauty, why? I love to feel it. I'd love to make it.
>You describe it. (translation: tag you're it)
>
The point is, and you seem to have missed it, NO ONE can describe beauty
objectively. Philosophers have tried for centuries. But what *you* love
is not what others love. Conditioning has persuaded us to accept
universal values that are called *beauty* that wouldn't be viewed so
without that conditioning. It's our job to challenge those notions and
that is what contemporary art is doing.
You can come public with your sweeping statements of authority, but
someone might just ask you to clarify this authority and there is no
evidence that you are able to do this. The gauntlet is down.
Alternatively, go back to your sleep walking ........
fc...@cme.com
Alison A Raimes <alis...@SPAMraimes.com> wrote:
>
> >Oh fabulous! What a bitch out!> >
beauty
> objectively. Philosophers have tried for centuries. But what *you*
love
> is not what others love. Conditioning has persuaded us to accept
> universal values that are called *beauty* that wouldn't be viewed so
> without that conditioning. It's our job to challenge those notions and
> that is what contemporary art is doing.
>
You can throw all the personal crap at me you want. You don't know
anything about me but you insist in making all these assumptions about
me and then being pissed off about your own inventions. You challenge
everyone to define beauty and then post how no one can. I know when I'm
being baited.
Our only job as artists is to make art. Our art is the only thing we
have to be faithful to. The artists that changed the world weren't
trying to. They were following their vision. All alone with their art.
I'll go back to where I started. Lately I don't see much that's new
that moves me. By "new" I mean anything in a modern genre. I have
seen new art that moves me but the styles are post-impressionsist,
impressionsist even older although there is very little of that.
Tonight I will try and make some art that I like. I don't really care
what you think of it at this point. I'm certainly not going to try to
make art that you like.
You said I just wanted everyone to agree with me. Well you're the one
that strapped on the rhetorical jackboots in this conversation.
You have single handedly made this a very annoying DL.
Frank
"War! Huh! Yeah! What is it good for absolutely NOTHING!" Edwin Starr
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/clipserve/B0000047I1001001/107-
0905178-8413349
Alison A Raimes
>You can throw all the personal crap at me you want. You don't know
>anything about me but you insist in making all these assumptions about
>me and then being pissed off about your own inventions. You challenge
>everyone to define beauty and then post how no one can. I know when I'm
>being baited.
>Our only job as artists is to make art. Our art is the only thing we
>have to be faithful to. The artists that changed the world weren't
>trying to. They were following their vision. All alone with their art.
>
>I'll go back to where I started. Lately I don't see much that's new
>that moves me. By "new" I mean anything in a modern genre. I have
>seen new art that moves me but the styles are post-impressionsist,
>impressionsist even older although there is very little of that.
>Tonight I will try and make some art that I like. I don't really care
>what you think of it at this point. I'm certainly not going to try to
>make art that you like.
>
>You said I just wanted everyone to agree with me. Well you're the one
>that strapped on the rhetorical jackboots in this conversation.
>
>You have single handedly made this a very annoying DL.
>
>Frank
What a spineless cop out. The *modern genre* - what the hell is that? I
don't know what hole you live in, but there is NOT a *modern genre*.
Postmodernism, as they insist on calling this era, is an age of
pluralism. I wonder if you even have contact with contemporary art.
The rest of your post is just ignorant and shows you are unable to
clarify your statements or determine your own thoughts.
Incidentally, I am not, nor have ever been in the slightest interested
in you or your work. I am only interested that you feel your boredom
with contemporary art warrants the attention of the public. Perhaps your
annoyance will now wake you from your slumbers.
Sharon Barcone
"Owen F. Ransen" <ransen_sp...@nemo.it> wrote in message
news:3a166d92...@news.newsguy.com...
> On Fri, 17 Nov 2000 13:53:32 GMT, fc...@cme.com wrote:
> >I don't like the emphasis of new over beauty. I want both.
> And I agree with you, that is the true discipline of good
> art I suspect...
> Owen
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder and we may never agree individually
with what beauty is. If we cannot agree on a definition of beauty does that
mean that is does not exist? Hardly. We each define beauty by our own
emotional response to it. So my question would follow as...Can creativity in
"new" art draw out the emotional response we feel as beauty. And does
"beautifully painted" evoke the same emotional response as "beautiful
subject"?
Alison A Raimes
<wq...@victoria.tc.ca> writes
>When we turn away from stupid attempts to shock us, we are categorized
>as prudish or worse, conservative. As far as I am concerned, reading
>volumes of history on World War II, seeing documentaries of the death
>camps, Warsaw ghetto, the film Mien Campf, has dulled every attempt
>to shock me. I believe this to be true of most of my peers. Of course
>the Romans & Greeks did it all before but not in this volume and not
>this organized. It's the organization of the holocaust which is the
>most shocking. So I'm with you, "artists, give me beauty and stop boring me
>with attempts to shock me." I've been there. And trying to define beauty can
This from the women who reported someone to their server for discussing
oral sex!!!!!!
Alison A Raimes
which contemporary art exists. She demonstrates how we are now immune to
any form of *shock*. While we munch on our TV dinners with the images of
starving children and dead bodies on the screens in front, it has become
now a matter of course. We are no longer moved by reality, and yet an
artificially constructed scene seen in movies and sometimes in art, with
its special effects, can result in a response. The opening scene in
_Saving Private Ryan_ can now evoke more repulsion than watching a
documentary on the Holocaust. The Holocaust, as Lyotard points out, is
the huge void that can never be understood. It is a huge silence and
there is no way to describe or illustrate silence.
Attempts to shock us are not stupid. They are symbols of the artificial
conditions that result in shock. The portrait of Myra Hyndley, the child
murderer, resulted in front page news in the national papers after the
_Sensation_ show in London. Images of child abuse were placed behind
screens with warnings. And then in Brooklyn, the use of elephant dung
and a black virgin Mary engulfed the entire population of New York for
weeks while the images of child abuse were in full view. Outrage from a
painting made in innocence. So while the world's atrocities continue
across the globe, western society is engrossed in confused values and
inventing situations to get outraged about. British Art has succeeded in
making its place in history for awakening this confusion and opening up
more debates across the globe about art than ever before. Crowds flock
to see British Art, undeterred by the possibility of shock because they
are desperate for controversy and reasons to debate.
While the likes of Marilyn and Frank yawn at it all, they in fact
represent the very essence of a mentality that is unprepared to actually
make their own decisions. Neither of them have ever seen the Saatchi
collection - a collection that is absolutely amazing. It has such a wide
variety of work in it that assuming that the so called *shock* work
constitutes the total is just plain ignorance. Decisions based on mass
media are being demonstrated here - and that is exactly where art is
today. It controls the Frank's and Marilyn's of this world who can't see
past the game it plays.
Calls for more beauty in art are easy. They represent calls for the
personal tastes of the caller. The caller, when confronted, is unable to
justify his call. To justify it would be to admit that he wants art to
be what he likes. And in this world, that makes no provision for the
most diverse arts of the century. It makes room only for individuals.
Incidentally, while the narrow minded North Americans still don't
understand that life outside their continent is not confined to the
constraints of the magazines, British art is flourishing and growing and
making more waves than anywhere in the world. The artists are taking the
initiative and making things work for them. Only a very small sector
are interested in shocking the audience - the majority are involved in
the interaction with the audience that breaks down the rifts that have
evolved from the authoritarian ideology of modernism. In Britain, art
is made for the people and given to the people through non profit making
artist run organisations. The museum situation is an elite sector for
only a few that are able to seduce the gullible. If you want to see some
real art then come to the East End of London and visit the scores of
artist run groups.
Alison A Raimes
http://www.raimes.com
http://artlives.homestead.com
In article <3A174C3C...@victoria.tc.ca>, Marilyn Welch
<wq...@victoria.tc.ca> writes
>Frank,
>
>Let me be frank,
>
>I think I know what you are writing about. It sounds familiar to a
>critique on the radio, of the new SHOCKING art exhibition in London,
>another Saachi collection. The reviewer said, Punk is over
>20 years old, it has left the room but some artists are continually
>trying to shock and force outrage on the public, and he was getting
>just plain bored with it.
>
>When we turn away from stupid attempts to shock us, we are categorized
>as prudish or worse, conservative. As far as I am concerned, reading
>volumes of history on World War II, seeing documentaries of the death
>camps, Warsaw ghetto, the film Mien Campf, has dulled every attempt
>to shock me. I believe this to be true of most of my peers. Of course
>the Romans & Greeks did it all before but not in this volume and not
>this organized. It's the organization of the holocaust which is the
>most shocking. So I'm with you, "artists, give me beauty and stop boring me
>with attempts to shock me." I've been there. And trying to define beauty can
>
>get ugly. Maybe try to describe it, or your experience of it, but leave
>the definition to the great poets.
>Marilyn
Alison A Raimes
Marilyn Welch <wq...@victoria.tc.ca> writes
>bored in Canada,
>
>Marilyn
>
Tut tut, don't you sound so angry ;-) I thought you didn't read me? What
happened to your *kill file* that you so proudly say you have set to
ignore me? Still, at least I managed to enrage you. There is some hope
then!
Oh yes, and that's right - you only threatened to report her. Those
famous idle threats ... like not responding to me ever again. I keep
forgetting that you didn't carry out the threat. Bit like your soul mate
Brooks.
Maybe you really should take up knitting - boredom can be terminal and
you would be such a loss here ..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
--
Alison A Raimes
Marilyn Welch <wq...@victoria.tc.ca> writes
>You didn't understand my point, your antagonism blunts your
>comprehension.
You had a point? Oh I remember. You are bored.
Alison A Raimes
Marilyn Welch <wq...@victoria.tc.ca> writes
>someone should report you to your server. Oh, someone already did
>and Demon.co.uk disowned you, tsk tsk.
Hardly! I fired Demon! they were almost twice the price of Claranet to
host my domain. I saved almost a hundred pounds a year by getting a
domain name - and I can use any ISP to collect my mail from anywhere in
the world. Sorry to ruin your fantasy ;-)
--
fc...@cme.com
> >
> >You have single handedly made this a very annoying DL.
> >
> >Frank
>
> What a spineless cop out. The *modern genre* - what the hell is that?
I
> don't know what hole you live in, but there is NOT a *modern genre*.
> Postmodernism, as they insist on calling this era, is an age of
> pluralism. I wonder if you even have contact with contemporary art.
>
> The rest of your post is just ignorant and shows you are unable to
> clarify your statements or determine your own thoughts.
>
> Incidentally, I am not, nor have ever been in the slightest interested
> in you or your work. I am only interested that you feel your boredom
> with contemporary art warrants the attention of the public. Perhaps
your
> annoyance will now wake you from your slumbers.
>
>
So your only reason for being upset is that I said I was bored with
modern art. To bad for you. No screeching emails from the harpie of
the rec.arts.fine are going to change my opinion for two reasons.
1. It's my opinion I've got a right to it.
2. You're nobody. Correction, you're a shrewish nobody.
So, you can try to discredit me all you want I just want to point that
I'm not ignorant, cowardly, uptight, uneducated or scared that my whole
system of values is going to be upset by the searing images in the next
gallery. Get real.
Now maybe the next big modern art movement is going to pop out from
east London. Great! Good for you if you have anything to do with it.
As I said art is hard enough without artists attacking each other.
But for me, I won't be there because I'M BORED WITH MODERN ART!
Frank Cote
Alison A Raimes
fc...@cme.com wrote:
> You're going to wake me from my slumbers? Please.
> So your only reason for being upset is that I said I was bored with
> modern art. To bad for you. No screeching emails from the harpie of
> the rec.arts.fine are going to change my opinion for two reasons.
> 1. It's my opinion I've got a right to it.
> 2. You're nobody. Correction, you're a shrewish nobody.
>
> So, you can try to discredit me all you want I just want to point that
> I'm not ignorant, cowardly, uptight, uneducated or scared that my
whole
> system of values is going to be upset by the searing images in the
next
> gallery. Get real.
> Now maybe the next big modern art movement is going to pop out from
> east London. Great! Good for you if you have anything to do with it.
> As I said art is hard enough without artists attacking each other.
> But for me, I won't be there because I'M BORED WITH MODERN ART!
>
> Frank Cote
And that is just fine - i am glad that you won't be taking up space.
You don't need to have anything to do with contemporary art. But if you
choose to devalue it and label everything that is contemporary art as
*boring* then you must be prepared to back it up with reasons and
logic. Instead of doing that, you, and Marilyn, have converted it to a
personal attack on you, thus attempting to distract from the issue.
Don't you think that is rather hypocritical? I mean, there are
thousands of artists who have had their work trashed by you, before you
have even seen it. And when I have trashed you and your opinion it
suddenly becomes a crime against freedom of speech. just where do your
values find their boundaries? How do you expect someone like me, who
works daily with some extremely good contemporary artists, to not at
least challenge you?
Your reaction is indicitive of someone who has no basis for their
*opinion* and however much you try and convince yourself that you are
entitled to it, it is false. You should have the guts to admit it.
--
Alison A Raimes
ali...@raimes.com
http://www.raimes.com
fc...@cme.com
>
> And that is just fine - i am glad that you won't be taking up space.
> You don't need to have anything to do with contemporary art. But if
you
> choose to devalue it and label everything that is contemporary art as
> *boring* then you must be prepared to back it up with reasons and
> logic. Instead of doing that, you, and Marilyn, have converted it to a
> personal attack on you, thus attempting to distract from the issue.
> Don't you think that is rather hypocritical? I mean, there are
> thousands of artists who have had their work trashed by you, before
you
> have even seen it. And when I have trashed you and your opinion it
> suddenly becomes a crime against freedom of speech. just where do your
> values find their boundaries? How do you expect someone like me, who
> works daily with some extremely good contemporary artists, to not at
> least challenge you?
>
> Your reaction is indicitive of someone who has no basis for their
> *opinion* and however much you try and convince yourself that you are
> entitled to it, it is false. You should have the guts to admit it.
>
You turned this into a personal attack from the beginning.
I never trashed anybody's work. I said I was tired of what I had
seen. I don't find it inspiring, moving or beautiful. I didn't always
feel that way but now I do. That's it. My opinion. No attack on
anybody.
If you want to go into any more detail than that forget it. I'll save
that for someone who actually wants to have a conversation. Someone
human.
Goodbye go away,
Frank
> --
Alison A Raimes
fc...@cme.com wrote:
> You turned this into a personal attack from the beginning.
> I never trashed anybody's work. I said I was tired of what I had
> seen. I don't find it inspiring, moving or beautiful. I didn't
always
> feel that way but now I do. That's it. My opinion. No attack on
> anybody.
> If you want to go into any more detail than that forget it. I'll save
> that for someone who actually wants to have a conversation. Someone
> human.
>
> Goodbye go away,
> Frank
>
And yet you STILL respond .... just like Marilyn. Your infuriated by me
and frustrated but you simply can't turn and walk away. You would
rather that I went away. Just like modern art. But I won't go away and
neither will modern art. You can't scream about rights to *freedom of
expression* for you and not allow it for others. Everyone's opinion is
as valid as the next, as you have rightly pointed out. And just
becaiuse you don't like something it doesn't mean that you have to deny
it of others. But that doesn't stop you challneging it.
People all over the world are infuriated with modern art, but how ever
frustrated they get, it will not go away. They can ignore it, but they
don't. They have to express their anxiety and they do so by devaluing
it.
You still have not presented any evodence that you have actually had
any contact with contemporary art and until you do your opinion is
worth nothing.
--
Alison A Raimes
ali...@raimes.com
http://www.raimes.com
fc...@cme.com
>
> And yet you STILL respond .... just like Marilyn. Your infuriated by
me
> and frustrated but you simply can't turn and walk away. You would
> rather that I went away. Just like modern art. But I won't go away and
> neither will modern art. You can't scream about rights to *freedom of
> expression* for you and not allow it for others. Everyone's opinion is
> as valid as the next, as you have rightly pointed out. And just
> becaiuse you don't like something it doesn't mean that you have to
deny
> it of others. But that doesn't stop you challneging it.
>
> People all over the world are infuriated with modern art, but how ever
> frustrated they get, it will not go away. They can ignore it, but they
> don't. They have to express their anxiety and they do so by devaluing
> it.
>
> You still have not presented any evodence that you have actually had
> any contact with contemporary art and until you do your opinion is
> worth nothing.
>
Yes dear, you're right. Frank
Alison A Raimes
>Yes dear, you're right. Frank
As I said, you can't help yourself but respond. If it was not important
to you, or if I hadn't woken you up a little, then you wouldn't have
bothered. At least if you are irritated then you aren't bored, and as I
said in my very first response to you - boredom is the creation of man.
You seemed to miss the point of that ;-)
Sharon Barcone
"Alison A Raimes" <ali...@raimes.com> wrote in message
news:xMENoXAe...@raimes.com...
> Marilyn has actually illustrated a vital part of the very philosophy in
> any form of *shock*.
What, you admit Marilyn has made a contribution?
>While we munch on our TV dinners with the images of
> starving children and dead bodies on the screens in front, it has become
> now a matter of course. We are no longer moved by reality, and yet an
> artificially constructed scene seen in movies and sometimes in art, with
> its special effects, can result in a response. The opening scene in
> _Saving Private Ryan_ can now evoke more repulsion than watching a
> documentary on the Holocaust. The Holocaust, as Lyotard points out, is
> the huge void that can never be understood. It is a huge silence and
> there is no way to describe or illustrate silence.
>
> Attempts to shock us are not stupid. They are symbols of the artificial
> conditions that result in shock. The portrait of Myra Hyndley, the child
> murderer, resulted in front page news in the national papers after the
> _Sensation_ show in London. Images of child abuse were placed behind
> screens with warnings. And then in Brooklyn, the use of elephant dung
> and a black virgin Mary engulfed the entire population of New York for
> weeks while the images of child abuse were in full view.
Not true. The entire population of New York? This exhibit was largely
ignored by the upstate population of New York. The population of New York
City turned out in small numbers compared to the roughly 15 million people
who live there. You have been seduced by the media circus which drew large
numbers of rubber neckers, you know, those who gawk at accidents on the
highway. And it was largely that media circle sensationalizing that drove
any to view it. Now that is mass media controlling a few but hardly all.
>Outrage from a
> painting made in innocence. So while the world's atrocities continue
> across the globe, western society is engrossed in confused values and
> inventing situations to get outraged about. British Art has succeeded in
> making its place in history for awakening this confusion and opening up
> more debates across the globe about art than ever before. Crowds flock
> to see British Art, undeterred by the possibility of shock because they
> are desperate for controversy and reasons to debate.
>
> While the likes of Marilyn and Frank yawn at it all, they in fact
> represent the very essence of a mentality that is unprepared to actually
> make their own decisions. Neither of them have ever seen the Saatchi
> collection - a collection that is absolutely amazing. It has such a wide
> variety of work in it that assuming that the so called *shock* work
> constitutes the total is just plain ignorance. Decisions based on mass
> media are being demonstrated here - and that is exactly where art is
> today. It controls the Frank's and Marilyn's of this world who can't see
> past the game it plays.
>
> Calls for more beauty in art are easy. They represent calls for the
> personal tastes of the caller. The caller, when confronted, is unable to
> justify his call.
And just how many of these thousands, maybe millions, besides Owen have you
actually talked to about this?
>To justify it would be to admit that he wants art to
> be what he likes. And in this world, that makes no provision for the
> most diverse arts of the century. It makes room only for individuals.
>
> Incidentally, while the narrow minded North Americans still don't
> understand that life outside their continent is not confined to the
> constraints of the magazines, British art is flourishing and growing and
> making more waves than anywhere in the world.
And when was the last time you were in North America? New York City art
critics, in North America by the way, is currently calling those who are
redefining realism and classicism the new avant-garde. Doesn't fit with your
outlook so I would assume you would discredit this.
>The artists are taking the
> initiative and making things work for them. Only a very small sector
> are interested in shocking the audience - the majority are involved in
> the interaction with the audience that breaks down the rifts that have
> evolved from the authoritarian ideology of modernism. In Britain, art
> is made for the people and given to the people through non profit making
> artist run organisations. The museum situation is an elite sector for
> only a few that are able to seduce the gullible. If you want to see some
> real art then come to the East End of London and visit the scores of
> artist run groups.
>
Many of those North American magazines you like to put down are also artist
run groups. But maybe not your kind of artists? There are also many not for
profit artist run organizations here. If you want to see some real art try
anywhere in this vast continent where a variety styles and subject matter
are accepted and thrive.
Alison A Raimes
Absolutely! she is a fine illustration of a Baudrillardian dilemma.
>
> Not true. The entire population of New York? This exhibit was largely
> ignored by the upstate population of New York. The population of New
York
> City turned out in small numbers compared to the roughly 15 million
people
> who live there. You have been seduced by the media circus which drew
large
> numbers of rubber neckers, you know, those who gawk at accidents on
the
> highway. And it was largely that media circle sensationalizing that
drove
> any to view it. Now that is mass media controlling a few but hardly
all.
I agree. However, the Broolkyn Museum fiasco made International news
(in case you didn't realise it) and the queue into the museum took
several hours to manouvre through. And you are right - it was full of
Americans who like to do noithing but gawk for the sake of gawking.
Good analysis.
> And just how many of these thousands, maybe millions, besides Owen
have you
> actually talked to about this?
In case you don't know it, the issue is one the most discussed in
aesthetics- the other is the notion of the sublime. I've been tuning
into Aesthetics-L for several years and it has been an ongoing debate
for the entire duration amongst the academics there. On Artcrit they
battled the issue out for several months. And on my own list the issue
is discussed with some frequency. However, on those lists, it is
somewhat more in depth and with a great deal more knowledge than here.
It extends beyond the *I know what I like* syndrome.
> And when was the last time you were in North America?
Do you mean since I lived there ten years ago? Last October actually!
and I stood for two hours in the rain to see how badly the Brooklyn had
hung the Sensations show. The Royal Academy did a far more professional
job.
New York City art
> critics, in North America by the way, is currently calling those who
are
> redefining realism and classicism the new avant-garde. Doesn't fit
with your
> outlook so I would assume you would discredit this.
>
Which new York critics? And in what publications?
> Many of those North American magazines you like to put down are also
artist
> run groups. But maybe not your kind of artists? There are also many
not for
> profit artist run organizations here. If you want to see some real
art try
> anywhere in this vast continent where a variety styles and subject
matter
> are accepted and thrive.
>
I think you have misunderstood me - I have not *put down* any art
magazines. Just commented on how the mass media succeeded in getting
the attention of the world by covering a story that was nothing but
attention seeking propaganda by Guilliana.
maybe you are confused?
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