Contemporary art
Jerry
People use the words modern or contemporary art to decribe artwork which
is abstract or non-objective in nature. Yet, these words themselves
have become dated for anyone who has been around for any length of
time. Are there other words that are taking the place of these words
that are used by the general public? Just curious.
steve ince
Jerry <jde...@interaccess.com> wrote:
I presume that by general public you are taking the stance of ignoring
the majority who have defined non-objective and abstract art as:
"My-three-year-old-can-do-better-than-that"
il...@hotmail.com
In article <6aa42o$25c$1...@starburst.uk.insnet.net>,
And should I presume, Steve, that you would lend credibility to this same
general public, who's cultural sophistication rises to the bare levels of
mass culture, tv, and the tabloids? High culture--of the figurative or
abstract sort--has always been an elitist affair and will continue to be
so. A cursory look at any best-seller list is enough to show how blind
the general public is to anything of real substance or importance in
terms of literature. Why should the visual arts be any different?
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
il...@hotmail.com
In article <34C789...@interaccess.com>,
jde...@interaccess.com wrote:
>
> People use the words modern or contemporary art to decribe artwork which
> is abstract or non-objective in nature. Yet, these words themselves
> have become dated for anyone who has been around for any length of
> time. Are there other words that are taking the place of these words
> that are used by the general public? Just curious.
My own opinion Jerry is to scrap the whole division as meaningless. All
art--and I do mean all--is representational. The real definition of
representational is "re-presentational", and "presentation" is from
presence which is derived from "essence", which in turn comes from esse,
or "to be". What the term really means is "to give presence again" to
something that is anterior, that came before. All art "re-presents"
something to the viewer, whether that be an idea, emotion, or visual
information. Dividing the field into abstract and representational art
only confuses the issues and makes a difference in kind when there is
only a difference in degree. Labels and terms are never value free, and
always come loaded with assumptions that need to be challenged or
examined. The same is true with the term "realist" art--all artists feel
and want their art to be real. What artist knowingly seeks falsehood?
The argument is really over what is real, and that is an interesting
debate, and worth fighting over. Unhappily, the use of the term
"realist" to describe one branch of art only serves to preempt the
discussion with a value judgment of its own--and one that is allowed to
go unchallenged far too often. The fight over definitions is not a fight
for sectioned off territories where each kind of art can live out its own
life undisturbed, but is a fight for the commons, the shared fertile
fields of the heartland.
Al Strano
I think a problem arises when the word "ART" is used. For some reason
the "my-three-year-old-could-do-that" mentality comes forth when we
speak of contemporary or high art with those who are not educated in the
history of art. It's only the word "ART" that confuses people. So
therefore I have decided to call contemporary art or high art
"Alternative Communication". What then happens is that the person with
whom I am speaking then understands that the essence of the conversation
is one person's concept of communication as opposed to one person's idea
of what is esthetically pleasing.
It works.
Albert Strano
Benny Shaboy
Al Strano wrote:
>
> I think a problem arises when the word "ART" is used.
Robert Rauschenberg once said, "In one of my first shows I had a woman
who was looking at a painting--it was a very large painting. It's the
one hanging in the Met now. And she said, 'If this isn't art, I like
it.' And what she meant by that was, if she didn't have to bring all
those considerations in, she could have a good time."
Benny Shaboy
--
http://www.webgalleries.com/studionotes
steve ince
Benny Shaboy <sno...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Robert Rauschenberg once said, "In one of my first shows I had a woman
>who was looking at a painting--it was a very large painting. It's the
>one hanging in the Met now. And she said, 'If this isn't art, I like
>it.' And what she meant by that was, if she didn't have to bring all
>those considerations in, she could have a good time."
>Benny Shaboy
I'm convinced that there is a large number of people who, when they
see a painting with a specific title, stare at it as though the
subject of the title will appear before their eyes. Something like
the Magic Eye 3D pictures.
Lisa A. Gittens
Al Strano wrote:
Bravo!
Alexander Antoniades & Susan Ritter
Another theory is education. If we are able to bring the artificial
pretensious image of *art* down to the layman - which, to me, is what artists
are, and the artist is recording the responses to a society in which this
observer resides - then we can start to deconstruct the barriers. *Art*
appears unapproachable to soooo many people (even me, an image-maker, to some
people's *art* out there) that I think education, or discussion with
interested viewers (including other artists!) could really help us all in
expanding art to all. I think that this idea of "alternative communication" is
starting to break down those alienating barriers. I do believe, however, that
it is to the benefit of *our* future to start employing an educational
prinicple, not a *you don't get it so you are stupid* attitude.
Susan Ritter
Al Strano
Yes, I agree. We should never take on an attitude that suggests someone
is stupid because they don't get. It is the fear of being called, or
mistaken as stupid that has created this inability to open ones mind to
concept. I think it should be our position as the creators of the work
and as those who study art, to educate the viewer at any expense. And if
we need to re-work a bit of the terminology then so be it.
Communication will resolve any of the confusion created by preconceived
notions of what "ART" should be.
Albert Strano
yukey
I think that communication is a key element in any kind of art form.
I also agree that education is very important to enable the
communication through art.
But a problem I have is how the education can be given to whom
interested in art these days.
Just like any other fields, such as natural science, mathematics,
political science..etc., art world has been branched out into so many
different sections. I heard from a friend of mine who is a
mathematician that two mathematicians who are in different section of
the field can not carry a constructive conversation because the language
they use is so different from each other. Living in NYC, I feel similar
way in art society. So many galleries are showing completely different
types of art within a same neighborhood. Anyone can do anything and
everyone can be ignored and accepted at the same time. Critics write
about shows but they seem to be busy trying to make their pieces of
writing impressive using more obscure language instead of talking about
art in plain language.
As I was learning an "art history", particularly in western culture, I had
an illusion that art has progressed in liner sense. There was a
movement which dominated particular time, then there was another
counter movement to progress art into a next era, along with whole
other social and cultural events. The notion of avant-garde had always
played a key role in this kind of progression.
Now...I wonder if art is still progressing. Or is our whole society
progressing in that sense?
Hiro Ichikawa
http://www.interport.net/~yukey
zi...@interport.net
Dear Mr. Ichickawa,
First of all read a little about art history. My favorite books on the
subject are those by James Ackerman and George Kubler. The Kubler,
called "The Shape of Time" was an answer to Ackerman [his student's]
argument published with an essay on the state oif archeology in a book
which I think came out at Princeton U. Press. The name woilll be in
the Kubler. I have great affection forthe both. One argument advanced
is that what we have of art history is a large pool of objects from
which arthistorians erect a varietyof structures over time, changing
as the present changes and none of them being as truly descriptive of
the past as they are of our current state. [actually Gombrich's Art
and Illusioin is worth reading, too. It provides a contrarian view of
the history of art].
With the exceptions [to some degree] of those things verifiable by
historical research, this remains true today.
For example, the idea of progress in the arts as held by a typical
cultured gentleman of the 1870s might see this example of progress:
From Raphael to Poussin to David to Ingres to the twin geniuses of
Hyppolite Flandrin and Gerome. Depending on his further views Puvis de
Chavannes could have been grafted onto the end.[ I would agree with
that person, myself-but I would have had a different way of connecting
him up.]
This would have been a line showing the triumph and progress of neo
classicism. Except for some of the post modern critics and museum
curators, both Flandrin and Gerome would be looked down as Pompier
academics, one an orientaliste who showed the various myths of
colonial France about the partially subject peoples of the middle east
for the delectation of an affluent Parisian public, the other who
mythologized through a noeclassicizing style, a Greek protohistory for
French Romantic sensibiloity and sensuality and implied Greek sources
for contemporary French society.
The idea of the avant garde is a time bound idea which started with
impressionism. A guide to this would be the excellent book by Cynthia
and Harrison White now reprinted wiuth a skippable introduction by the
University of Chicago press. There was no such idea before that time.
Nineteenth century French painters did not see themselves as
avant-gardistes, but as artist with different takes on the art od the
past which they were continuing., That was as much true of Gericault
and Delacroix as it was fro Ingres. CXourbet is a possible exception,
but one man does not make a movement, even a great man.
I, myself to not believe that art goes ever onward and upward. I like
Haniwa as much as anything Japan has produced. And I like cave
painting and bone engravings of men and animals produced by paleolithc
hinters as much as anything men have produced. I am old enough to have
been allowed into the Laacaux caves. When I was there, I had no sense
of their inferiority to Michelangelo. Similarly I had no sense that
the paintings in the Villa of Augustus caesar's mother, just outside
the walls of th twon of Pompeii, and buried by the same eruption, are
any less great than anything the world has ever produced. I had the
same feeling aboput the Horyuji monastery paintings [from the Unesco
book] and from the one remaining one-after the fire, which I have seen
in Nara.
Why must we be living in a simple one directional wrold, ever onward
and upward, without a backward glance to be doing well?
Sincerely,
Gabriel Laderman
Bryan Ayers
In article <34CB93...@passport.ca>, Al Strano <eye...@passport.ca> wrote:
>I think a problem arises when the word "ART" is used. For some reason
>the "my-three-year-old-could-do-that" mentality comes forth when we
>speak of contemporary or high art with those who are not educated in the
>history of art. It's only the word "ART" that confuses people. So
cooking, sculpture etc. that I am refering to.
Asking the question what is 'art' is a waste of time. Art(not
by any realistic definition) is what ends up in Museums and Galleries.
What I mean is that a person who asks the question 'what is art' is
actually asking what will end up in a Gallery or Museum, -or get talked
about by self declared art critics.