meaty discussions
Michele Sohn
Discussion here seems pretty lean.
Two years ago this newsgroup was buzzing with everything from
post-modernity to picasso,
but now a deafening silence from absence of thought floods the space.
what's happened?
(or have i just grown up?)
O. Max
Maybe we've all become vegetarians.
JKearman
In article <01bba5a0$c552a9e0$2ca104c4@grizelda>, "Michele Sohn"
<cur...@greymatter.co.za> writes:
>Two years ago this newsgroup was buzzing with everything from
>post-modernity to picasso,
>
>but now a deafening silence from absence of thought floods the space.
>
>what's happened?
>
>
Everytime someone mentions a favorite artist or style, certain individuals
release the Dogs of Realism and Technique, and the ensuing howling
completely overwhelms the original idea. We should hang a sign over the
gateway, "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Admire Mondrian and the Abstract
Expressionists."
One self-professed artist and critic with an opinion (usually negative,
however) on everything, claims he finds the Buddha, Christ and Carl Jung
"uninspiring," and another s-p critic makes the statement "I'm right and
you're wrong." People who apply polar absolutes to the fine arts have not
only missed the boat, they're in the wrong port.
I realize I have just become my enemy.
Jim
Kajojacobs
Re: The absence of dialog:
I think I see a spark - (she said, fanning gently.)
August was ablaze with opinions - I assume everyone needed a break to
catch their collective breath - and -MAYBE- even do a bit of painting!
(and I was *almost* convinced I should go back to a traditional format -
sorry, it didn't take!)
Karen
========================================================
Previous posts:
Jim
===================================================
~Karen Jacobs~
Mike Jones
Michele Sohn wrote:
>
> Discussion here seems pretty lean.
>
> post-modernity to picasso,
>
> but now a deafening silence from absence of thought floods the space.
>
> what's happened?
>
Maybe its the season. However, maybe you can tell me if you know of any
other newsgroups which might post art equipment for sale, i.e.
kilns?
Ketti (c/o of Mike Jones)
Mdeli
"Michele Sohn" <cur...@greymatter.co.za> wrote:
>Discussion here seems pretty lean.
>Two years ago this newsgroup was buzzing with everything from
>post-modernity to picasso,
>but now a deafening silence from absence of thought floods the space.
>what's happened?
>(or have i just grown up?)
Its cause people like you have nothing better to say.
Mani DeLi
Mdeli
kajoj...@aol.com (Kajojacobs) wrote:
>Re: The absence of dialog:
> I think I see a spark - (she said, fanning gently.)
>August was ablaze with opinions - I assume everyone needed a break to
>catch their collective breath - and -MAYBE- even do a bit of painting!
>(and I was *almost* convinced I should go back to a traditional format -
>sorry, it didn't take!)
>Karen
Most here seem to imagine that there are only two
formats in art, Modern Academic or traditional.
It shows how uncreative and uninformed most of the
products of present day art education really are.
Mani DeLi
---no skill no art
Mdeli
Karen Jacobs wrote:
>Everytime someone mentions a favorite artist or style, certain individuals
>release the Dogs of Realism and Technique,
Woof Woof.
> and the ensuing howling
>completely overwhelms the original idea.
Yes; if your original idea is as illogical as the above
statement.
>One self-professed artist and critic with an opinion (usually negative,
>however) on everything...,
Yep that's me.
The logic of the above self-professed artist and critic
indicates that if you don't happen to like exactly
what someone else likes you have a mostly negitive
opinion on EVERYTHING.
>...claims he finds the Buddha, Christ and Carl Jung
>"uninspiring,"
I find mystical mumbo-jumbo uninspiring. So what?
>." People who apply polar absolutes to the fine arts have not
>only missed the boat, they're in the wrong port.
Is the statment; " I don't like Mondrian's painting and
I think he was a twit," a polar absolute?
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
JKearman
In article <51rkqk$g...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, jkea...@aol.com (JKearman)
writes:
>
>In article <01bba5a0$c552a9e0$2ca104c4@grizelda>, "Michele Sohn"
><cur...@greymatter.co.za> writes:
>
>>Two years ago this newsgroup was buzzing with everything from
>>post-modernity to picasso,
>>
>>but now a deafening silence from absence of thought floods the space.
>>
>>what's happened?
>>
>>
I replied, in part:
>
>
> Everytime someone mentions a favorite artist or style, certain
individuals
> release the Dogs of Realism and Technique, and the ensuing howling
> completely overwhelms the original idea. We should hang a sign over the
> gateway, "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Admire Mondrian and the Abstract
> Expressionists."
>
> One self-professed artist and critic with an opinion (usually negative,
> however) on everything, claims he finds the Buddha, Christ and Carl Jung
> "uninspiring," and another s-p critic makes the statement "I'm right and
> you're wrong." People who apply polar absolutes to the fine arts have
not
> only missed the boat, they're in the wrong port.
Then, Mani DeLi said, in response to Michelle's original posting:
> Its cause people like you have nothing better to say.
>
and kajoj...@aol.com (Kajojacobs) wrote:
>August was ablaze with opinions - I assume everyone needed a break to
>catch their collective breath - and -MAYBE- even do a bit of painting!
>(and I was *almost* convinced I should go back to a traditional format -
>sorry, it didn't take!)
>Karen
In response to which, Mani DeLi wrote:
> Most here seem to imagine that there are only two
> formats in art, Modern Academic or traditional.
>
> It shows how uncreative and uninformed most of the
> products of present day art education really are.
>
> Mani DeLi
> ---no skill no art
I rest my case!
Jim Kearman
JKearman
In article <51tbi0$j...@news.interlog.com>, hu...@interlog.com (Mdeli)
writes:
>Karen Jacobs wrote:
>>Everytime someone mentions a favorite artist or style, certain
individuals
>>release the Dogs of Realism and Technique,
>
> Woof Woof.
Back in your cage, Hugo. Karen Jacobs didn't say that, I (Jim Kearman)
said that. If you're going to spread your hate and frustration with
abandon, at least figure out how to make correct attributions.
>
>> and the ensuing howling
>>completely overwhelms the original idea.
>
>Yes; if your original idea is as illogical as the above
>statement.
If it's so "illogical," why have you been able to identify with it and
attempt to defend against it?
>
>>One self-professed artist and critic with an opinion (usually negative,
>>however) on everything...,
>
>Yep that's me.
>
>The logic of the above self-professed artist and critic
>indicates that if you don't happen to like exactly
>what someone else likes you have a mostly negitive
>opinion on EVERYTHING.
If the shoe fits, Hugo...
>
>>...claims he finds the Buddha, Christ and Carl Jung
>>"uninspiring,"
>
>I find mystical mumbo-jumbo uninspiring. So what?
You find any opinion except your own crabby fixation on technique
"uninspiring." You think you are an intellectual, but in reality, you are
nothing but a whiny fraud. Your so-called book is full of the same boring
negativism as your postings to this newsgroup. You claim to have turned
out dozens of paintings in a day, but nowhere on this planet, apparently,
is it possible to view your work. You have infested this newsgroup long
enough. Turn off your modem and get a life.
>
>
>>." People who apply polar absolutes to the fine arts have not
>>only missed the boat, they're in the wrong port.
>
>Is the statment; " I don't like Mondrian's painting and
>I think he was a twit," a polar absolute?
No, but your constant refusal to even admit the possibility of emotion in
art, is.
>
>Mani DeLi
>...no skill no art
I'd say that sums up your entire life, and certainly explains your
hostility toward successful artists, like Mondrian.
Jim Kearman
Erik Johnson
Mdeli wrote:
> Most here seem to imagine that there are only two
> formats in art, Modern Academic or traditional.
>
> It shows how uncreative and uninformed most of the
> products of present day art education really are.
Seems to me that you are one of the prime 'discussers'
of Modern Academic art vs past masters. Between that
and the skill vs passion threads, you rarely discuss
anything else (except to slam the occasional website).
-Erik Johnson
er...@phidias.colorado.edu
http://phidias.colorado.edu/vgallery.html
Kajojacobs
Here we go again (she said, pulling out the garden hose) with the same
old dog fights and flame throwing (reaching for the nozzle and taking
aim) Might I suggest NOT RESPONDING to certain posts designed to
antagonize by unleashing the same opinionated blather time after time?
(smiling as the whole subject is drenched under tremendous water
pressure!)
Now, then. Anyone see any good exhibitions this summer?
~Karen Jacobs~
Mdeli
>Jim Kearman writes:
>Back in your cage, Hugo. Karen Jacobs didn't say that, I (Jim Kearman)
>said that. If you're going to spread your hate and frustration with
>abandon, at least figure out how to make correct attributions.
I have read negitive stuff about all 19th century
Academic work, illustration, and artists from Dali to
Norman Rockwell for about forty years.
I doubt that the guys who wrote that stuff were
spreading Hate and frustration.
We all have opinions and this is one place where one
can express an unfashionable ones and be heard. If you
regard anything that dissagrees with your opinions as
mere "ensuing howling" so be it.
>You find any opinion except your own crabby fixation on technique
>"uninspiring." You think you are an intellectual, but in reality, you are
>nothing but a whiny fraud. Your so-called book is full of the same boring
>negativism as your postings to this newsgroup. You claim to have turned
>out dozens of paintings in a day, but nowhere on this planet, apparently,
>is it possible to view your work. You have infested this newsgroup long
>enough. Turn off your modem and get a life.
>>
In order to calm down I sugest you take some Prozak and
stop reading my messages.
>>Mani DeLi
>>...no skill no art
>I'd say that sums up your entire life, and certainly explains your
>hostility toward successful artists, like Mondrian.
Id say that if you have no skills your "entire life"
won't add up to much of anything. No skill certainly
"explains" Mondrian doesn't it?
RG
>Discussion here seems pretty lean.
>Two years ago this newsgroup was buzzing with everything from
>post-modernity to picasso,
>but now a deafening silence from absence of thought floods the space.
>what's happened?
>(or have i just grown up?)
Its cause people like you have nothing better to say.
Mani DeLi
=======================================
No, it is because of advertising, and because of the endless
number of stupid postings (-many of them yours, Mani Deli.)
Ross Green
================this is a test============
Andrew Werby
Mike Jones <wwa...@intac.com> wrote:
>Michele Sohn wrote:
>>
>> Discussion here seems pretty lean.
>>
>> Two years ago this newsgroup was buzzing with everything from
>> post-modernity to picasso,
>>
>> but now a deafening silence from absence of thought floods the space.
>>
>> what's happened?
>>
>> (or have i just grown up?)
[And what would you like to talk about, Michele? Why not start a meaty
thread and see what comes of it? I don't think that the fact that some
regulars here have predictable opinions should be an inhibiting factor.
Say something provocative, and maybe someone will be provoked to stop
lurking and say something interesting.]
>
>Maybe its the season. However, maybe you can tell me if you know of any
>other newsgroups which might post art equipment for sale, i.e.
>kilns?
>
>Ketti (c/o of Mike Jones)
[You might try alt.art.marketplace , which is open to all art-related
postings, including art equipment for sale or wanted. Also,
rec.crafts.pottery might be a good place to buy or sell a kiln.]
Andrew Werby - United Artworks
wsp
I don't expect anything really important to come out of this forum
because someone makes a good point and the next person misses it
entirely (because of lack of what? education? experience?) Or someone
comes along and has to express his anger or prejudice; that's the end of
it for me.
I mean I don't spend much time here or elsewhere because we are trying
to have a very specialized conversation at a cocktail party, no...
better, at an octoberfest! Too many distractions made by anyone who
comes along. Is there a MODERATED fine arts newsgroup?
Mdeli
wsp <w...@olympus.net> wrote:
>I don't expect anything really important to come out of this forum
>because someone makes a good point and the next person misses it
>entirely (because of lack of what? education? experience?) Or someone
>comes along and has to express his anger or prejudice; that's the end of
>it for me.
Yes. Read only those who agree with you.
>I mean I don't spend much time here or elsewhere because we are trying
>to have a very specialized conversation at a cocktail party, no...
>better, at an octoberfest!
Right. Get drunk..
>Too many distractions made by anyone who
>comes along. Is there a MODERATED fine arts newsgroup?
Yes. You can read any of about fifty artzy-fartzy
magazines and you will get fifty yeatrs of "moderated
discussion" one sided discussion. That way you needn't
ever again get upset. Bye bye.
.
This reply is exactly what I mean by someone coming along and being
pissed off or missing the point! How about a effort spent toward
something constructive? I'd like to read alot of the constructive stuff.
All the points you make here seem impulsive and designed for their
immediate impact; if you consider each a little longer they are clearly
not thought out. For example, there is no fruitful comparison between a
moderated newsgroup and an art magazine which would satisfy my stated
interests here. Except for the miniscule editorial pages, the latter
does not present a discussion opportunity into which anyone may hope to
enter (their ticket being a thoughtful response).
Should I go on about the "get drunk" thing?.
Thanks for demonstrating the point I make; be assured this does *not*
make me happy.
Kajojacobs
>This reply is exactly what I mean by someone coming along and being
>pissed off or missing the point! How about a effort spent toward
>something constructive? I'd like to read alot of the constructive stuff.
Hello, wsp,
Hang around for awhile, this is usually a very good forum for worthwhile
discussion and debate. Unfortunately, as in any group, some confuse
intellegent opinion with dogmatic tenacity. It's slow right now, but
maybe that's because school's starting, the new TV season is cranking up,
or we're just letting our ankles heel after all the nipping they took in
August (see above.)
Now, what would you like to bring to the conversation?
(BTW if someone really ticks you off, IMO you should just hit delete and
move on to the next post.)
~Karen Jacobs~
Joqual
In article <52aa9r$1...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, kajoj...@aol.com says...
>(BTW if someone really ticks you off, IMO you should just hit delete and
>move on to the next post.)
You keep saying that, and I keep trying that, and all I get is a sore
finger from repitive stress of punching the delete button. I think that
suggestion works well with spam in my E-mail, but the only thing
that gets rid of Usenet articles is "marking them as read."
Cheers, Joqual.
Albedo
Mdeli wrote:
>
> Most here seem to imagine that there are only two
> formats in art, Modern Academic or traditional.
>
> It shows how uncreative and uninformed most of the
> products of present day art education really are.
>
> ---no skill no art
Intersting. I was actually looking for some sort of discussion on
exactly what you say above; what is the product of present day art
education? I never heard the term Modern Academic and I would like to
know to what are you referring? The term *traditional* seems elusive
enough to me yet I cannot deny that it conjures up images of artists who
were educated to the highest degree of their day in the areas of science
as well as in the arts.
albedo
Albedo
Yes, John Currin at Regen Projects in Los Angeles.
Albedo
Mdeli wrote:
>
> wsp <w...@olympus.net> wrote:
> >
> >Too many distractions made by anyone who
> >comes along. Is there a MODERATED fine arts newsgroup?
>
> Yes. You can read any of about fifty artzy-fartzy
> magazines and you will get fifty yeatrs of "moderated
> discussion" one sided discussion. That way you needn't
> ever again get upset. Bye bye.
One sided discussion? Which side is that? If you see a one-sided
discussion in contemporary art, perhaps it is because your concept of
logic and skill is faulty from the beginning. If you are as
intellectually inclined as you would have us believe, then you would
have to read every assertion in an article on an individual basis
checking the validity before concluding the whole thing worthless.
After all of your talk about logic, you forget that logic is a "way";
while my logic may be true, my premise may be absurd. If you see a
one-sided discussion it is probably because you only take from an
article those elements that please your prideful nature.
For example, you said in another post:
> I believe that everyone with normal vision sees just
> about the same thing.
Truly, a self-gratifying statement.
albedo
Mdeli
Albedo <alb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Mdeli wrote:
>>
>> wsp <w...@olympus.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >Too many distractions made by anyone who
>> >comes along. Is there a MODERATED fine arts newsgroup?
>>
>> Yes. You can read any of about fifty artzy-fartzy
>> magazines and you will get fifty yeatrs of "moderated
>> discussion" one sided discussion. That way you needn't
>> ever again get upset. Bye bye.
>One sided discussion? Which side is that? If you see a one-sided
>discussion in contemporary art, perhaps it is because your concept of
>logic and skill is faulty from the beginning.
The media have consistantly supported what I call
Modern Academic Art as the great art of this century to
the exclusion of what they label as kitsch,
illustration and commercial.
> If you are as
>intellectually inclined as you would have us believe, then you would
>have to read every assertion in an article on an individual basis
>checking the validity before concluding the whole thing worthless.
Your assertion is pedantic. Why not mention where to
find massive evidence to counter my assertion.
>After all of your talk about logic, you forget that logic is a "way";
>while my logic may be true, my premise may be absurd. If you see a
>one-sided discussion it is probably because you only take from an
>article those elements that please your prideful nature.
Well see if you can find a mass of articles in any
popular artzy fartzy publication that blasts Picasso or
Matisse's draftsmanship or a negitive opinion on
Cezanne or Mondrian. That should keep you busy for
starters.
>For example, you said in another post:
>> I believe that everyone with normal vision sees just
>> about the same thing.
>Truly, a self-gratifying statement.
self gratifieng?
Kajojacobs
In article <52duk7$a...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, joq...@centex.com (Joqual)
writes:
>
>>(BTW if someone really ticks you off, IMO you should just hit delete and
>>move on to the next post.)
>
>You keep saying that, and I keep trying that, and all I get is a sore
>finger from repitive stress of punching the delete button. I think that
>suggestion works well with spam in my E-mail, but the only thing
>that gets rid of Usenet articles is "marking them as read."
>
>Cheers, Joqual.
Try the "ignore" button in your head - works the same way.
~Karen Jacobs~
Albedo
After hearing Mdeli make a sweeping judgement that there is neither any
value in the media's evaluation of contemporary art nor in the education
of young, budding artists in an academic environment, Albedo decided to
challenge Mdeli and wrote:
> >One sided discussion? Which side is that? If you see a one-sided
> >discussion in contemporary art, perhaps it is because your concept of
> >logic and skill is faulty from the beginning.
So Mdeli wrote:
> The media have consistantly supported what I call
> Modern Academic Art as the great art of this century to
> the exclusion of what they label as kitsch,
> illustration and commercial.
Perhaps you need to find a better audience for you art...one that is not
so susceptible to the whims of the ever-powerful media.
...Attacking Mdeli's inference that he/she is above and beyond the
frivolous dashings of the artistic community and the horrible
institutions that produce nothing but con artists, I contiued to write:
> > If you are as
> >intellectually inclined as you would have us believe, then you would
> >have to read every assertion in an article on an individual basis
> >checking the validity before concluding the whole thing worthless.
and Mdeli replied:
> Your assertion is pedantic. Why not mention where to
> find massive evidence to counter my assertion.
And my response:
Pedantic??? Me? I guess that makes two of us then. But rather than I
find massive evidence to counter your assertion, I actually need only to
point to a sentence or phrase to crack the sweeping generalization you
have made. What you are suggesting is that we must read an article and
agree with everything that critic says, that we are not capable of
discriminating between a valid statement and a pedantic ass. What I am
saying is simply that an article which may be pro-Picasso might in fact
contain a worthy analysis that you could use in an anti-Picasso
position. Besides, you have not defined what Modern Academic Art is.
And Albedo previously went on to say:
> >After all of your talk about logic, you forget that logic is a "way";
> >while my logic may be true, my premise may be absurd. If you see a
> >one-sided discussion it is probably because you only take from an
> >article those elements that please your prideful nature.
>
> Well see if you can find a mass of articles in any
> popular artzy fartzy publication that blasts Picasso or
> Matisse's draftsmanship or a negitive opinion on
> Cezanne or Mondrian. That should keep you busy for
> starters.
What, pedantic?
You still have yet to tell me what Modern Academic Art is. That would
be too easy wouldn't it? But if you take "artzy fartzy" magazines as
gospel then that's your problem. The burden of proof does not afterall
rely on me. You seem to have a bigger problem with the media than most
of the rest of us.
But our dear artist-friend who suggested that this newsgroup is more
like a cocktail party [than, say, a symposium on art] hit the mark right
on the button. I was hoping for more than just bite-me,
you-show-me-yours-and-I'll-show-you-mine condescension.
albedo
---
"The supreme misfortune is when theory outstrips performance."
Leo D.
Darren Reynolds
In article <324F3E...@earthlink.net>,
Albedo <alb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>You still have yet to tell me what Modern Academic Art is. That would
>be too easy wouldn't it? But if you take "artzy fartzy" magazines as
>gospel then that's your problem. The burden of proof does not afterall
>rely on me. You seem to have a bigger problem with the media than most
>of the rest of us.
>
There is no such thing as a Mod. Academic Art. Hence the contemporary
artist's problem - the lack of something to revolt against. In the
all-embracing, sponge of the postmodern world nothing is that easy or
simple.
Picasso and Matisse learned the academic way and then subverted it. This is
not available to the contemporary artist.
Darren
Mdeli
I wrote
>> The media have consistently supported what I call
>> Modern Academic Art as the great art of this century to
>> the exclusion of what they label as kitsch,
>> illustration and commercial.
>Perhaps you need to find a better audience for you art...one that is not
>so susceptible to the whims of the ever-powerful media.
I never had audience problems. I was a tuition free
student for most of my school days. I won my best
scholarship to Europe by the vote of Clement Greenberg
because I could also produce a big schmier when
necessity called for it. While I was making a living as
a painter I always sold well. I frequently had problems
with art galleries which didn’t pay me and I never got
bad reviews. The media never directly bothered me.
However I believe they could provide something better
than what on balance was forty years of stupidity. As
to schools I have experienced both ends of the
spectrum. My opinion of their worst aspects comes from
seeing and speaking to the failures they produce.
>...Attacking Mdeli's inference that he/she is above and beyond the
>frivolous dashings of the artistic community and the horrible
>institutions that produce nothing but con artists, I contiued to write:
The institutions rarely produce con artists they
produce mostly failures. Con artists are successful and
amusing, failures are less bearable.
>> > If you are as
>> >intellectually inclined as you would have us believe, then you would
>> >have to read every assertion in an article on an individual basis
>> >checking the validity before concluding the whole thing worthless.
>and Mdeli replied:
>
>> Your assertion is pedantic. Why not mention where to
>> find massive evidence to counter my assertion.
>And my response:
Which begs the question
>Pedantic??? Me? I guess that makes two of us then. But rather than I
>find massive evidence to counter your assertion, I actually need only to
>point to a sentence or phrase to crack the sweeping generalization you
>have made. What you are suggesting is that we must read an article and
>agree with everything that critic says, that we are not capable of
>discriminating between a valid statement and a pedantic ass. What I am
>saying is simply that an article which may be pro-Picasso might in fact
>contain a worthy analysis that you could use in an anti-Picasso
>position.
So what.
> Besides, you have not defined what Modern Academic Art is.
From my book, "No Skill No Art"
The term "modern art", written in small letters,
roughly refers to the whole spectrum of contemporary
art. However this book will primarily concentrate on a
particular facet of modern art namely MODERN ACADEMIC
ART or MAA as it will be abbreviated throughout this
book. I use this term to categorize those most familiar
works which inhabit the modern wings of all museums and
which are critically accepted to rank as the great
masterpieces produced during this century. I call this
Modern "Academic" Art because like the Academic work
of the last century its theories and styles dominate
teaching and practice and it is considered
quintessentially influential on all other contemporary
work.
.
Let me emphasize that the term MAA. as used here does
not refer to all contemporary artwork but only to those
exalted masterpieces of this century ranked by our most
important critics as equal or superior to the greatest
classical art of the past.
Mani DeLi
Teemu Lahteenmaki
Mani Deli (I think) wrote:
: > I believe that everyone with normal vision sees just
: > about the same thing.
But then again, seeing is not preceiving. We might "see" the same thing,
but we surely precieve/interpret things we see very subjectively.
I think it's stupid to base art criticism on "what we see" (photons) and
not on "what we precieve" (neural activity) when examining an art piece.
--
Teemu Lahteenmaki
to...@tukki.jyu.fi, http://www.jyu.fi/~tola/ (also vrml)
Student of digital media, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Bruce Attah
In article <AE7601199...@reinwood.demon.co.uk>,
dar...@reinwood.demon.co.uk (Darren Reynolds) wrote:
I think you're wrong. Not only is there such a thing as Modern Academic
Art, but the term is very apt, the phenomenon is very obvious and very
worth rebelling against, if you're an artist in a rebellious mood.
First of all, there is a vast amount of art being produced today that can
realistically be called 'modern', not just in the sense that it is being
created now, but also in the sense the form it takes in some way reflects
the fact that it is being produced now. Yet, only a tiny fraction of that
art has any chance of being accepted within the official temples of modern
art, such as our national galleries. This is not just because a lot of
the work is simply bad, but also because a lot of the work, though by it
would be regarded as good by the criteria used to measure pre-modern art,
is intolerable to the directors and curators of these temples, and to the
academics who make it their business to study and write about
"contemporary art", because it does not appear to conform to an ideology
of art known as "modernism".
There is only one way to understand the ideology of modernism, and that is
through contact with the theories put forward by these academics and
promoted by haute bourgoise art world officials. So the art that does
conform to this ideology is distinguishable from the non-conforming art by
its academicness.
This art is a small fraction of all modern art; it is unpopular, even
among those with humanities degrees, who feel obliged to pay it
lip-service, but who, after wandering patiently around a gallery of the
stuff, thoughtful expressions neatly plastered on their faces, proceed
immediately to the gallery shop to buy postcard reproductions of paintings
from the nineteenth century and earlier. Nobody except institutions
bought the Abstract Expressionist's during that style's supposed heydey,
and today, the current officially acceptable "contemporary art" is
collected by a tiny handful of people, perhaps numbering in the dozens
rather than in the hundreds. The only people who seem to like this art
without reservation are the academics themselves, and their appreciation
seems to derive not from their response to the art-objects as objects, but
as illustrations of their favourite theories. The academic attitude is
moralistic, anti-aesthetic, conservative and exclusionary, and it insists
on vast size. It is, if anything, worse than the attitude held by leaders
of the establishment a hundred years ago, who are now derided as
proponents of that period's "academic art".
In case you haven't noticed, in Europe, the proponents and apologists of
Academic Modern Art are heirs to EXACTLY THE SAME INSTITUTIONS that were
the home of academic art in the nineteenth century. In the Americas, they
are connected with parallel institutions, most of which were only
established in this century, but which follow models established in
earlier centuries in Europe.
Given the nature of the art that receives favour from the establishment:
cold, unsensual, unbeautiful, concerned almost obsessively with theory,
there is every reason to rebel against it, and to try to produce something
better. Perhaps post-modernism could be described as just such a
rebellion. But what has been labelled post-modern so far has largely been
nothing more than a slightly diluted, slightly more eclectic variant of
modernism. A total rejection of modernism's basic tenets is required if
the arts of painting and sculpture are to be revived from their
century-long torpor.
Bruce Attah.
Ron Rizzo - Sun PC Networking Operations
Some points:
- rebellion itself is a cliche'. Why do visual artists have to
"rebel" against anything? You don't hear this requirment in
literature, music, the stage, etc. It's like the compulsory
demand for innovation in every piece of work an artist does,
an absurd and unrealistic requirement.
- the fact that few people seem to spontaneously like or prefer
modernist work says absolutely nothing about its value. Very
few concert-goers are enthusiastic about hearing Stravisnky or
Schoenberg, nevermind Ligeti or Maxwell Davies, but this fact
does not reduce once bit the importance of these composers and
their music.
- just because something is difficult, strange or complex does
not mean it has less meaning or value.
I think the whole problem with some of the snap opinions people deliver
about visual arts is that they're still considered inferior to other arts:
literature, drama, music. If a painting doesn't function like a greeting
card or poster, it's obviously worthless.
Try taking some of the opinions expressed here and applying them to other
arts. Or other areas, like science, business, technology, etc. They
wouldn't be taken seriously in these other areas.
Ron
Kajojacobs
In article <52s4mt$m...@walters.East.Sun.COM>, rri...@leonardo.East.Sun.COM
(Ron Rizzo - Sun PC Networking Operations) writes:
>I think the whole problem with some of the snap opinions people deliver
>about visual arts is that they're still considered inferior to other
arts:
>literature, drama, music. * If a painting doesn't function like a
greeting
>card or poster, it's obviously worthless.*
However, in many circles, it's exactly the opposite - guess it's relative
to which circle you're standing in.
~Karen Jacobs~
Mdeli
Darren wrote
> There is no such thing as a Mod. Academic Art.
I think Bruce answered the this quite well.
>Hence the contemporary
>artist's problem - the lack of something to revolt against.
Why does an artist have to be revolting. Did you learn
this in school?
> In the
>all-embracing, sponge of the postmodern world nothing is that easy or
>simple.
The postmodernist school is the same old crap with a
catchy label and some fresh Artspeak.
>Picasso and Matisse learned the academic way and then subverted it. This is
>not available to the contemporary artist.
Although Picasso did attend the academy in Madrid,
Matisse was about as academic as Mondrian. He did
enroll for a short while in Bouguereau’s class at the
Academy Julian where his teacher told him "you’ll never
learn to draw." He soon left and followed Bouguereau’s
advice.
JKearman
In article
<Bruce.Attah-01...@support-saturn.isltd.insignia.com>,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) writes:
>A total rejection of modernism's basic tenets is required if
>the arts of painting and sculpture are to be revived from their
>century-long torpor.
Would those of you who agree with Bruce please post what you feel are
modernism's
"basic tenets," because I think they would be interesting to discuss.
We've been discussing the lack of obvious technique; what are others?
Jim Kearman
Regiment's Hobby Shop
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
>This art is a small fraction of all modern art; it is unpopular, even
>among those with humanities degrees, who feel obliged to pay it
>lip-service, but who, after wandering patiently around a gallery of the
>stuff, thoughtful expressions neatly plastered on their faces, proceed
>immediately to the gallery shop to buy postcard reproductions of paintings
>from the nineteenth century and earlier. Nobody except institutions
>bought the Abstract Expressionist's during that style's supposed heydey,
>and today, the current officially acceptable "contemporary art" is
>collected by a tiny handful of people, perhaps numbering in the dozens
>rather than in the hundreds.
-----------------
Leaving the topic a bit...It appears to me that the real "underground"
art is representational. Here where I live, in Texas, I know several
rather successfull artists who make a good living supplying the pent up
demand of representational art. Even I sell. Shows of impressionists and
prior that travel here in the states are swamped with viewers. On CNN
last night an article on the Degas exhibit showed packed galleries.
Cezanne, Vermeer, Homer...all merited the same response. Even our little
regional shows do well, if they are representational. Why? because the
great unwashed masses are a bit more educated and independent than the
art establishment would like to think. I hear constant complaints that
the art market has dried up. No one buys paintings any more. Art is
dead. Well, art is not dead, Art has moved on and, as usual, the
entrenched establishment has failed to keep up.
AT
Darren Reynolds
In article <52sjs0$b...@news.interlog.com>,
hu...@interlog.com (Mdeli) wrote:
>Darren wrote
>>Hence the contemporary
>>artist's problem - the lack of something to revolt against.
>
>Why does an artist have to be revolting. Did you learn
>this in school?
Does any one know what this is suppose to mean? Art has been a reactive
practise for many years. It's what prevents artists repeating and art
stagnating.
>> In the
>>all-embracing, sponge of the postmodern world nothing is that easy or
>>simple.
>
>The postmodernist school is the same old crap with a
>catchy label and some fresh Artspeak.
Again I don't understand what you mean. What same old crap? Which
postmodern art are you talking about? Unless you mean that awful, kitsch
American neo-classical stuff of the eighties, I don't see how it can be the
'same old crap'. No you'd probably like that neo-classical stuff!
Anyway I was refering to the postmodern condition, not any 'school'. It is
so easy to dismiss with catch-all phrases like 'artspeak'.
Btw what does skill mean? My brother's a skilled engineer, does this mean
he's an artist?
Perhaps you should turn to embriodery or something.
Darren
Mdeli
(JKearman) wrote:
>Would those of you who agree with Bruce please post what you feel are
>modernism's
>"basic tenets," because I think they would be interesting to discuss.
These quotes and comments are from my book "No skill no
art" Chapter " Greenbergian Fundamentalism"
Clement Greenberg was the outstanding critic
responsible for the popularizing and gaining acceptance
for most of what is passed off as major artwork dated
from 1945 and onward to the present. Greenberg’s
critique is directly responsible for what inhabits our
museum collections for this period. He almost alone
gave Abstraction Expressionism its primal boost well
before other holy critics jumped on the bandwagon.
Almost all of what is said about this period and even
much of the Picassoid period can be traced back to
statements by Greenberg.
"…easel pictures whose design was "all-over"--that is,
filled from edge to edge with evenly spaced motifs that
repeat themselves uniformly like the elements in wall
paper pattern and therefore seemed capable of repeating
the picture beyond its frame into infinity.
As to flatness and the representational, Greenberg
writes:
"No one has yet been able to demonstrate that the
representational as such adds or takes away from the
merit of a picture or statue."
"From Giotto to Courbet, the painter's first task had
been to hollow out an illusion of three-dimensional
space on a flat surface. One looked through this
surface as through a proscenium into a stage. Modernism
has rendered this stage shallower and shallower until
now its backdrop has become the same as its curtain,
which has now become all the painter has left to work
on. (p. 136)"
"The spatial illusion, or rather the sense of it, is
what we miss even more than we do the images that used
to fill it.."
The essence of Greenbergian fundamentalism is that the
spatial illusion and the representation of form in art
is passé’. So now their is metaphorically speaking no
backdrop, just a flat curtain containing nothing
spatial and certainly nothing representational. The
stage with its characters and spatial scenery is to be
seen as something out of the past. From now on we only
needed to concentrate our view on the flat "curtain."
This simple dictum is apparently what justifies years
of "curtains" in particular those of Abstract
Expressionism. The indirect result were works which
exhibited little or no competence, craft and no
uniqueness. These could be easily imitated and were
often even forged. Ironically what ended up counting
in the eyes of critics, students and museum curators
was to be first. The first dripper, big schmierer of
black alone, the first creator of large stripes etc.
Greenbergian theory alone accounts for all the boring
eccentricities which are executed with so little
competence.
"The real and fundamental source of the dissatisfaction
we may feel with abstract painting lies in the not
uncommon problems offered by a new language."
In other words the problem lies with those who those
who won’t make the effort to understand Artspeak.
These few statements all from Greenberg’s " Art and
Culture." This in great part defined what is behind
the basic ideas Modern Academic theory . For some
really bone-crunching Artspeak along with much insight
into Modern Academic Art read this book.
Mdeli
>>Darren wrote
>>>Hence the contemporary
>>>artist's problem - the lack of something to revolt against.
I answered
>>Why does an artist have to be revolting. Did you learn
>>this in school?
Darren answers:
>Does any one know what this is suppose to mean? Art has been a reactive
>practise for many years. It's what prevents artists repeating and art
>stagnating.
Yep, that's what you learn in the Art Mythology course
at most art schools. I suppose 70 years of Modern
Academic conformy is a constant revolt against
something.
>>> In the
>>>all-embracing, sponge of the postmodern world nothing is that easy or
>>>simple.
>>
>>The postmodernist school is the same old crap with a
>>catchy label and some fresh Artspeak.
>Again I don't understand what you mean. What same old crap? Which
>postmodern art are you talking about? Unless you mean that awful, kitsch
>American neo-classical stuff of the eighties, I don't see how it can be the
>'same old crap'. No you'd probably like that neo-classical stuff!
Ask your art teacher.
>Anyway I was refering to the postmodern condition, not any 'school'. It is
>so easy to dismiss with catch-all phrases like 'artspeak'.
So what's the "postmodern condition." Should I ask my
doctor?
>Btw what does skill mean? My brother's a skilled engineer, does this mean
>he's an artist?
It means that your brother can do something you can't
do.
>Perhaps you should turn to embriodery or something.
Is playing dumb a result of your "postmodern
condition?"
Mdeli
Regiment's Hobby Shop <game...@n-link.com> wrote:
>-----------------
>Leaving the topic a bit...It appears to me that the real "underground"
>art is representational. Here where I live, in Texas, I know several
>rather successfull artists who make a good living supplying the pent up
>demand of representational art. Even I sell. Shows of impressionists and
>prior that travel here in the states are swamped with viewers. On CNN
>last night an article on the Degas exhibit showed packed galleries.
>Cezanne, Vermeer, Homer...all merited the same response. Even our little
>regional shows do well, if they are representational. Why? because the
>great unwashed masses are a bit more educated and independent than the
>art establishment would like to think. I hear constant complaints that
>the art market has dried up. No one buys paintings any more. Art is
>dead. Well, art is not dead, Art has moved on and, as usual, the
>entrenched establishment has failed to keep up.
>AT
This is dead right. The reason modern schmierers think
art is dead is because for everyone who wins the Modern
Academic Art lottery there are hundreds of losers who
paint just as badly. For them art is deservingly dead.
As I have always said here there a more artists
producing fine work then ever before and there are
beginning to be larger numbers of worthwhile teachers.
Never the less we are still in the grip of Modern
Academic Art because it still dominates the media and
the schools. The museums for the most part except for a
rare surprise, always carry the usual crap.
The problem is that fine work is not often available as
reproducion. I often see good work by artists I never
heard of. California has lots of fine surrealists and I
admit I don't really know what's happening there. There
are scores of Western painters and sadly the only one I
can name off hand is James Bama. I guess that's my
fault. The Web is of little help as most of the
contemporary stuff I see here is incompetent garbage. I
think the reason for this is that fine painting takes
time and I guess artiists don't want there work
randomly reproduced. Perhaps someone here has
additional ideas about this.
The only work that is readily available in the media
is the best of comic books and illustration.
Kajojacobs
In article <52tvpk$v...@ns3.n-link.com>, Regiment's Hobby Shop
<game...@n-link.com> writes:
>Leaving the topic a bit...It appears to me that the real "underground"
>art is representational. Here where I live, in Texas, I know several
>rather successfull artists who make a good living supplying the pent up
>demand of representational art. Even I sell.
==========
AHA!! I thought something like that was going on! Even though this has
been my best year ever - mostly due to my abstracts (thank you very much,)
I have felt the tug to put a little minimalistic still life or foggy
landscape in my paintings. Why not try to please all the people all the
time! (Before everyone gets themselves in a dither - I assure you I paint
for myself - my own needs - my own personal responses to the world
crisises - but, hey, what could a little realism hurt?)
===========
>Shows of impressionists and
>prior that travel here in the states are swamped with viewers. On CNN
>last night an article on the Degas exhibit showed packed galleries.
>Cezanne, Vermeer, Homer...all merited the same response. Even our little
>regional shows do well, if they are representational. Why? because the
>great unwashed masses are a bit more educated and independent than the
>art establishment would like to think. I hear constant complaints that
>the art market has dried up. No one buys paintings any more. Art is
>dead. Well, art is not dead, Art has moved on and, as usual, the
>entrenched establishment has failed to keep up.
>
=============
And those educated-independent-great-unwashed-masses want art they can
live with - enjoy without having to explain to their friends what it's all
about. However - some do care enough to venture beyond what everyone else
relates to - and then they often look to abstraction. But in my
neighborhood (upper-mid) few look at the walls in my house for fear they
might have to make some kind of response - and they don't know what to
say. My very ordinary, pleasing to look at, (not to mention highly
decorative...no, no, I didn't say THAT!) minimal abstracts are truly
"avant-garde" around here. If only I could get the hang of painting
something with a Mardi Gras theme...sigh...
~Karen Jacobs~
Darren Reynolds
In article <52tvpk$v...@ns3.n-link.com>,
Regiment's Hobby Shop <game...@n-link.com> wrote:
>Leaving the topic a bit...It appears to me that the real "underground"
>art is representational. Here where I live, in Texas, I know several
>rather successfull artists who make a good living supplying the pent up
>demand of representational art. Even I sell. Shows of impressionists and
>prior that travel here in the states are swamped with viewers. On CNN
>last night an article on the Degas exhibit showed packed galleries.
>Cezanne, Vermeer, Homer...all merited the same response. Even our little
>regional shows do well, if they are representational. Why? because the
>great unwashed masses are a bit more educated and independent than the
>art establishment would like to think. I hear constant complaints that
>the art market has dried up. No one buys paintings any more. Art is
>dead. Well, art is not dead, Art has moved on and, as usual, the
>entrenched establishment has failed to keep up.
>
What is the established art then? Abstract expressionism? Hey that happened
in the fifties.
Your definition of 'underground' is strange - what appeals to the masses.
You know that impressionism stuff that goes down so well? It was mocked at
the time for not being 'real art'. How does it feel to be a century behind
in good 'ole Texas?
Of course representational art goes down well. The more chocolate box the
better. The idea that 'impressionistic' kind of representation is
'underground' is so funny. There has been a return to a kind of
representional art outside the Sunday-painter world, but not a century old
kind. You see that developed out of the demands, discoveries, of the times.
We live in different times.
Seems difficult for a lot of people in this newsgroup to comprehend this
pretty obvious fact. People still going on about Rembrandt as if the world
had stopped still.
Wake-up
Darren
Bruce Attah
> Some points:
>
> - rebellion itself is a cliche'. Why do visual artists have to
> "rebel" against anything?...
I absolutely agree with this sentiment. However, rebellion is a central
tenet of modernism in visual art. When we get rid of the silly notion
that you can only produce good art by rebelling against prior art, artists
will be able to learn effectively from one another and produce more
rewarding work.
> - the fact that few people seem to spontaneously like or prefer
> modernist work says absolutely nothing about its value...
I wouldn't say _nothing_, but I would agree that this is not the central
thing. My own reasons for believing that certain work is of no value is
that I, an informed and thoughtful art lover (okay, some may disagree),
find the work unsatisfactory after considerable reflection upon it, and
upon the claims made on its behalf.
> - just because something is difficult, strange or complex does
> not mean it has less meaning or value...
I agree, but also just because something is difficult and strange does not
mean it has _more_ meaning or value. (I did not include 'complex' in my
list, because modernist/postmodernist visual art is usually simpler,
rather than more complex, than pre-modern art.) Modernists often seem to
believe that all they have to do to produce good art is to produce an
unlikeable oddity.
> I think the whole problem with some of the snap opinions people deliver
> about visual arts is that they're still considered inferior to other arts:
> literature, drama, music. If a painting doesn't function like a greeting
> card or poster, it's obviously worthless.
I don't quite understand this. For my own part, I do not think visual
arts in any way inferior to other arts, though I appreciate that anyone
taking a casual glance around a gallery full of modernist art might easily
take such a view.
Paintings should function as paintings, and greeting cards as greeting
cards. Paintings intended for display in people's houses have a
decorative function which needs to be taken into account by the artist.
There is no sense in making pictures that could only reasonably be
displayed in a museum and then being upset that private individuals do not
buy the work.
> Try taking some of the opinions expressed here and applying them to other
> arts. Or other areas, like science, business, technology, etc. They
> wouldn't be taken seriously in these other areas.
>
> Ron
Very true.
Bruce Attah.
Darren Reynolds
In article <52umk7$o...@news.interlog.com>,
hu...@interlog.com (Mdeli) wrote:
>>>Why does an artist have to be revolting. Did you learn
>>>this in school?
What is this school you keep going on about? My experience of art school is
that there is certainly no kind of 'brainwashing' going on. It would be too
much like hard work for the tutors/lecturers for a start! You're left very
much to your own devices, to develop in your own direction. Maybe it's
different in America.
>>>The postmodernist school is the same old crap with a
>>>catchy label and some fresh Artspeak.
>
>>Again I don't understand what you mean. What same old crap? Which
>>postmodern art are you talking about? Unless you mean that awful, kitsch
>>American neo-classical stuff of the eighties, I don't see how it can be the
>>'same old crap'. No you'd probably like that neo-classical stuff!
>
>Ask your art teacher.
Why is 'my art teacher'(?) going to know what sort of postmodern art you
think is the 'same old crap'? He's never even met you, whoever he is. Why
don't you just answer the question? I'm interested to know what 'old crap'
you mean and what postmodern art is like it.
>
>>Btw what does skill mean? My brother's a skilled engineer, does this mean
>>he's an artist?
>
>It means that your brother can do something you can't
>do.
>
Exactly! And this seems to be what you think an artist should be. Skilled,
like an engineer.
Darren
Bob Cantor
JKearman wrote:
>
> Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) writes:
>
> >A total rejection of modernism's basic tenets is required if
> >century-long torpor.
>
> Would those of you who agree with Bruce please post what you feel are
> modernism's "basic tenets,"
I'm not one of those, but I think that the following list of tenets,
paraphrased from "Criticizing Photographs" by Terry Barrett, is a
well thought out and objective attempt to succinctly define the
tenets of modernism:
1. high premium placed on originality
2. form is more important than content
3. superior attitude toward popular culture
4. belief in individual genius
5. art primarily refers to other art
6. art exists for arts sake
7. external context is irrelevant
8. art objects are precious and unique
> We've been discussing the lack of obvious technique;
This is a characteristic of the style which resulted from the way
in which most artists were applying these tenets. It probably results
mostly from the interpretations of items 1, 3, and 4. Popular culture
reveres displays of skill in representational and decorational arts, so
the modernist rejects that. They may also believe that the display
of craftmenship does not reflect the individual genius, and therefore
only distracts from it. And since painters have been using styles which
showcase their skills for hundreds of years and since most painters
today
continue to do so, one can usually be more obviously original with
a style that does not.
The interpretations of 1 and 4 are indeed quite narrow (and the
reasons for the existence of item 3 probably not well founded,
although given popular culture's frequent predilections towards
lowest-common-demoninator crap, I can understand how this
tenet would come about). It is human nature, however, for groups
acting on a doctrine to eventually arrive at narrow interpretations
no matter how broad the guiding doctrines may have been. So it is not
surprising that a certain look and feel evolved which defined what we
call "modern art". Is this a bad thing? I hope not, because this
accurately describes the prevalent styles of art in every generation
since the beginning of civilization.
- Bob C
JKearman
In article
<Bruce.Attah-03...@support-saturn.isltd.insignia.com>,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) writes:
>>
>> - rebellion itself is a cliche'. Why do visual artists have to
>> "rebel" against anything?...
>
>I absolutely agree with this sentiment. However, rebellion is a central
>tenet of modernism in visual art. When we get rid of the silly notion
>that you can only produce good art by rebelling against prior art,
artists
>will be able to learn effectively from one another and produce more
>rewarding work.
>
>
Rebellion is as natural as the weather. Change is rarely orderly or
linear. There will always be rebellion, in the arts and in politics. The
nature of things being what it is, rebellion is necessary to progress,
but--rebellion does not necessarily lead to progress. In other words,
rebelliousness is not enough. Enter technique, etc.
Jim Kearman
Bruce Attah
In article <324F3E...@earthlink.net>, alb...@earthlink.net wrote:
> ...an article which may be pro-Picasso might in fact
> contain a worthy analysis that you could use in an anti-Picasso
> position...
This statement just caught my eye, and I thought, "how apt!" because my
favourite sources for anti-modernist inspiration are the most partisan
modernist writers. Roger Fry, Clement Greenberg, Art & Language, Brandon
Taylor, Richard Cork -- all these inspire me. Sometimes the gaps in their
logic are such that you could ride a bus through.
Bruce Attah
In article <AE78B8179...@reinwood.demon.co.uk>,
dar...@reinwood.demon.co.uk (Darren Reynolds) wrote:
> What is the established art then? Abstract expressionism? Hey that happened
> in the fifties.
Good guess. The 'leading' Abstract Expressionists are key members of the
modernist canon. That their style died out in less than a decade because
it was simply too boring to endure is by-the-by.
> Your definition of 'underground' is strange - what appeals to the masses.
> You know that impressionism stuff that goes down so well? It was mocked at
> the time for not being 'real art'. How does it feel to be a century behind
> in good 'ole Texas?
Brilliant display of modernist thinking. Because it was done a hundred
years ago, it follows that it is a hundred years out of date. Sorry,
mate: _real_ art doesn't date that way. If it's good, it pretty well
stays good.
> Of course representational art goes down well. The more chocolate box the
> better.
What does it mean to say that a picture is 'chocolate box art' or
'buiscuit tin art'. Basically, it means that somebody thought the picture
was good enough to put on their chocolate box or their buiscuit tin. If
it happens that the person making the choice is someone with good taste,
then good art may well end up on food packaging. Is it not true to say
that the paintings of Rembrandt and Leonardo have turned up on consumer
packaging? Does this mean that these paintings are bad? Consider
Mondrian. Where have you seen reproductions of Mondrian's abstract
paintings, or designs in Mondrian's style? On everything from Tee-shirts
and mugs to sweet packets and car-maintenance manuals. What does that say
about Mondrian?
The appearance of a work of art as an embellishment to consumer goods or
their packaging is proof, that the work is seen as valuable -- and capable
of indicating, or even enhancing, the value of the thing to which it is
attached. It is also proof that acceptance of the value of the work is
fairly uncontroversial. No-one is going to use a work of art as a
marketing tool for their product if the result is likely to be that
prospective customers are put off.
It is this suggestion of uncontroversiality that gives 'chocolate box art'
its cachet of insult to a modernist. 'Surely, art that everyone agrees is
good cannot possibly be good?' So thinks the modernist. Again, the
modernist is wrong. Uncontroversiality is no more proof of badness than
is controversiality proof of goodness.
So ingrained is this idea that work must be controversial (and, more to
the point, disliked by the majority) to be good, that modernists rewrite
history so that all their favourite artists die unpraised: David,
Gericault, Modigliani and many others have undergone this treatment; and
of course, when a _bad_ artist dies unpraised, the same is elevated to the
status of genius.
> The idea that 'impressionistic' kind of representation is
> 'underground' is so funny. There has been a return to a kind of
> representional art outside the Sunday-painter world, but not a century old
> kind. You see that developed out of the demands, discoveries, of the times.
> We live in different times.
Hmm. You may have a point. Lucian Freud is one of the most successful
painters around right now, and he is a straightforward realist. Realism
isn't a hundred years old, but more than a hundred and fifty. Philip
Harris is one of the big up-and-coming painters. He's been called a
modern Pre-Raphaelite. Now _when_ was it that Holman-Hunt and his
brethren got together?
> ...People still going on about Rembrandt as if the world
> had stopped still.
Versus people who want to forget Rembrandt because they know that
comparisons will have odious consequences for them.
Rembrandt has something to teach us all about painting. Okay?
Bruce Attah
In article <325402...@dev.infomkt.ibm.com>, Bob Cantor
<can...@dev.infomkt.ibm.com> wrote:
> JKearman wrote:
> >
> > Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) writes:
> >
> > >A total rejection of modernism's basic tenets is required if
> > >the arts of painting and sculpture are to be revived from their
> > >century-long torpor.
> >
> > Would those of you who agree with Bruce please post what you feel are
> > modernism's "basic tenets,"
>
> I'm not one of those, but I think that the following list of tenets,
> paraphrased from "Criticizing Photographs" by Terry Barrett, is a
> well thought out and objective attempt to succinctly define the
> tenets of modernism:
>
> 1. high premium placed on originality
> 2. form is more important than content
> 3. superior attitude toward popular culture
> 4. belief in individual genius
> 5. art primarily refers to other art
> 6. art exists for arts sake
> 7. external context is irrelevant
> 8. art objects are precious and unique
>
That's not a bad list. Here's my version:
...........................................
The following lists group the tenets of modernism according to their
origins. Every modernist holds most of the following beliefs to some
degree. Modernism is a rope of several strands, and some people follow
one strand more closely than they do others, but most borrow eclectically
from all of these strands, because each strand offers something to a
person who is looking for ways to excuse bad art.
If you find that some of the statements below represent your cherished
beliefs, and some of the rest are things you have taken for granted as
true, but have never really thought about, then you are a modernist.
THE STRANDS:
Tenets of modernism carried over from Romanticism:
==================================================
(2) Great artists are obsessed with something unhealthy.
(3) Great artists are obsessed with themselves.
(4) Great artists suffer, mainly because
(5) Nobody likes great art.
(6) Until they are told what it means.
(7) And how to look at it.
(8) Then they love it.
(9) Because the genius of the artist is revealed.
(10) And genius is _very_ close to madness.
Tenets of modernism carried over from Realism:
==============================================
(1) Great art is ugly.
(2) Because the world is ugly,
(3) And because it is morally wrong to idealize things.
(4) Great art never tells stories.
(5) Because stories are untrue (and pretty), while the world is ugly.
(6) Great art is not very interesting.
(7) For similar reasons.
(8) And great art gives social scientists something to write about.
(9) For similar reasons.
(10) But people struggle to like it because it is _important_.
Tenets of modernism imported from Judaism, Puritanism and Theosophy:
====================================================================
(1) Great art is non-objective (aniconic).
(2) Because representing things in pictures is base and materialistic.
(3) It is dishonest, too.
(4) Even though it is okay to represent things in words.
(5) And there's nothing particularly wrong with representing things in music.
(6) And representation is okay in the theatre, too.
(7) And at the cinema.
(8) And on television.
(9) Because pictures of nothing are pictures of God.
(10) So the very best pictures are pictures of nothing -- even for atheists.
Tenets of modernism formed out of the Industrial Revolution:
============================================================
(1) New is better.
(2) Even if it is worse.
(3) Art should not look machine-made.
(4) So art should look rough and clumsy.
(5) If something sounds scientific it is good.
(6) Even if it isn't scientific.
(7) If it looks new, it is new.
(8) Even if someone did it hundreds of years ago.
(9) Because that stuff doesn't count.
(10) Because modern people don't read about old stuff.
Tenets of modernism rooted in French and German pseudo-philosophy:
==================================================================
(1) Anything said by Nietzche is true.
(2) Because the best kind of statement is overstatement.
(3) And it is true even if it is false.
(4) Because Nietzche said it.
(5) Therefore, there is no objective reality.
(6) Nor is there any good or bad.
(7) And all banalities are profound.
(8) Therefore all art is great art.
(9) As long as it is self-conscious
(10) Because self-consciousness is the highest form of consciousness.
(11) ...And the critic is the real artist, anyway.
THE CORE:
How the ideas above are brought together in modernism:
======================================================
(1) Great artists are superior human beings, above the common herd
(2) They are unsullied by plebeian craftsmanship, commercialism,
sentiment or morality.
(3) Nor are they subservient to tradition.
(4) Rather, they contemptuously 'interpret' the masters of the past.
(5) Just as they mock the commercial world by parodying it.
(6) They are not subject to the dictates of 'taste'.
(7) Which is why many people wrongly perceive their work to be ugly.
(8) And, in any case, that apparent ugliness reflects a tragic world.
(9) And it is a profoundly new, scientific kind of beauty.
(10) Which you will understand when you read the $30 exhibition catalogue.
ADDENDUM:
The fears that strike the heart of every modernist artist:
==========================================================
(1) That there is nothing new to be done.
(2) That someone will find out it has been done before.
(3) That they will be expected to have more than one idea per decade.
(4) That they are kidding themselves.
(5) That someone is kidding them.
(6) That the plebs will like their work.
(7) That the plebs will understand their work.
(8) That the hoi-polloi will NOT like their work.
(9) That the hoi-polloi WILL understand their work.
(10) That no-one will buy what they have carefully devised to seem unsaleable.
AND ONE MORE LIST:
Some questions a sceptic might wish to ask a modernist:
=======================================================
(1) This angst, is it really a sign of genius, or is it prolonged adolescence?
(2) If sugary sentiment is bad, why is hammed-up morbidity okay?
(3) Are you sure your spontaneity is anything more than an affected mannerism?
(4) Or a cover for ineptitude?
(5) Can you prove to me that you really see things that way?
(6) Would seeing things that way be useful, if you did?
(7) What makes your abstracts more valuable than wallpaper?
(8) What are your grounds for believing you are better than a comic artist?
(9) Do you have anything _interesting_ and _intelligent_ to say?
(10) Do you LIKE non-modernist art at all, or are you a complete philistine?
Darren Reynolds
In article <Bruce.Attah-04...@support-saturn.isltd.insignia.com,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
>In article <AE78B8179...@reinwood.demon.co.uk>,
>dar...@reinwood.demon.co.uk (Darren Reynolds) wrote:
>
>
>> What is the established art then? Abstract expressionism? Hey that happened
>> in the fifties.
>
>Good guess. The 'leading' Abstract Expressionists are key members of the
>modernist canon. That their style died out in less than a decade because
>it was simply too boring to endure is by-the-by.
How can it be 'by the by' if it's been claimed that it is the established
art today? If it's died out then it obviously isn't. You talk about
modernism as if it was still king. Greenberg and his formalist ideas have
been refuted by much contemporary art - the stuff that appeals to me
anyway.
>
>> Your definition of 'underground' is strange - what appeals to the masses.
>> You know that impressionism stuff that goes down so well? It was mocked at
>> the time for not being 'real art'. How does it feel to be a century behind
>> in good 'ole Texas?
>
>Brilliant display of modernist thinking. Because it was done a hundred
>years ago, it follows that it is a hundred years out of date. Sorry,
>mate: _real_ art doesn't date that way. If it's good, it pretty well
>stays good.
>
So if someone paints in pseudo-pointillist style today it is no different
from Seurat's experimental works based upon contemporary discoveries? Both
are equally valid? It is not a question of the art being out of date, but
the practise of creating it.
You don't seem to appreciate that artworks are linked to the times in which
they were created. For an example we can return to Cindy Sherman. Her work
wouldn't mean anything to a pre-cinema audience because they wouldn't get
the references. Her work, as Seurat's, and yes Rembrandt's, are/were
informed by the times in which they lived.
BTW in reference to another post, I saw a Georgina Starr
exhibition/installation in Manchester last year and thought it was great
fun. A real experience - strangely touching too. Are you not perhaps
inhibited from enjoying her work by preconceived notions on what art should
be? ie a rectangle on a wall.
Darren
Mdeli
Anyone who hints at the existence of a sour note in
MAA is rebutted with stock statements. I leave it to
the reader to glean from his experiences and fill in
the blanks:
But don't you see that Blah Blah is no longer the case
with MAA
The painter didn't forget to include ____ he actually
chose purposely, to eliminate the ____.
It is an experiment in ____; that is why the____looks
that way. Its not supposed to look like a ______. You
must realize that the artist saw it that way.
Bruce Attah
>
Organization: Insignia Solutions
In article <AE7C17F8...@reinwood.demon.co.uk>,
dar...@reinwood.demon.co.uk (Darren Reynolds) wrote:
> In article <Bruce.Attah-04...@support-saturn.isltd.insignia.com,
> Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
>
> >In article <AE78B8179...@reinwood.demon.co.uk>,
> >dar...@reinwood.demon.co.uk (Darren Reynolds) wrote:
> >
> >
> >> What is the established art then? Abstract expressionism? Hey that happened
> >> in the fifties.
> >
> >Good guess. The 'leading' Abstract Expressionists are key members of the
> >modernist canon. That their style died out in less than a decade because
> >it was simply too boring to endure is by-the-by.
>
>
> How can it be 'by the by' if it's been claimed that it is the established
> art today? If it's died out then it obviously isn't. You talk about
> modernism as if it was still king. Greenberg and his formalist ideas have
> been refuted by much contemporary art - the stuff that appeals to me
> anyway.
Modernism is not dead. It may seem that way to you, but to me, as one who
perceives the contemporary art scene as a morass of increasingly inept
silliness and nihilism, the cause of the nonsense that we have now is
continued adherence to modernist notions of what art should be.
Greenberg's formalism is only one aspect of modernism (and it still
influences many artists). And yes, it is by-the-by that ab-ex is a dead
style as far as practice goes. What counts is that the ab-exers are held
up as a model for new artists, not so much so that their particular style
should be imitated, but so that their approach should be followed.
> So if someone paints in pseudo-pointillist style today it is no different
> from Seurat's experimental works based upon contemporary discoveries? Both
> are equally valid? It is not a question of the art being out of date, but
> the practise of creating it.
If someone paints in a "pseudo-" pointilist style today, they may paint
well or badly. What counts is not the style, but what they do with it.
Pointillisme was silly the first time around, anyway, and Seurat's
"scientific" approach was NOT based on contemporary discoveries (though he
thought they were). All the tricks he employed had been known to the
mosaicists of Byzantium more than a thousand years before. Seurat and
Signac in their investigations displayed a typically modernist ignorance
of the past.
> You don't seem to appreciate that artworks are linked to the times in which
> they were created. For an example we can return to Cindy Sherman. Her work
> wouldn't mean anything to a pre-cinema audience because they wouldn't get
> the references. Her work, as Seurat's, and yes Rembrandt's, are/were
> informed by the times in which they lived.
I rather think I appreciate the link between art and the times in which it
is created better than you do. Artists do not need to create specious
newness or to set up artificial walls between themselves and the past in
order to reflect the times they live in. You say Cindy Sherman's art
wouldn't be understood by pre-cinema audiences. Well, let us suppose a
time machine, then. Think of those pictures of motorbikes and military
aircraft, all painted in a supposedly outdated, nineteenth century style.
Take those back with you along with the Cindy Sherman pictures. Plenty of
high street art is more modern than Cindy Sherman's art in its
references. Still, to you, with your narrow understanding of modernity,
such stuff is not modern.
Yet art need not be "modern" in this sense to be good. An artist may
choose for subject matter one of those eternal verities: love, death,
birth. There is no necessity that the work must be incomprehensible to
past generations in order to successfully reflect the thought and feeling
of the present. Indeed, work that is modern in its references can still
miss the mark of appealing to contemporary sensibilities.
As for technique, there are techniques that work and others that do not.
Just as we do not discard the wheel on the basis that it was invented in
prehistoric times, we have no reason to discard a technique, be that
pointillism or whatever, as long as it continues to work. Modernism, in
blind rebellion (and despair at not being able to invent anything new)
jettisons one technique after another, screaming "That's old, that's
old!" The modernists imagined themselves to be balloonists, throwing out
sandbags so that they could rise higher. What they were actually ejecting
was the basket itself. Now, as a void opens beneath the feet of artists
and spectators, a yearning afflicts them for the comforts that the old
basket gave them: imagery, narrative, meaningful variety. Yet pride will
not allow them to admit their mistake, so they adopt the postmodern
attitude, pretending that the crude new basket they are cobbling together
from rope and scraps of the old one is only a joke, an ironic, mocking
reference to that cage-basket from which they have wisely freed
themselves. We should stop kidding ourselves. What we have now is a joke
only in the sense that it is a pathetically inadequate substitute for real
art.
> BTW in reference to another post, I saw a Georgina Starr
> exhibition/installation in Manchester last year and thought it was great
> fun. A real experience - strangely touching too. Are you not perhaps
> inhibited from enjoying her work by preconceived notions on what art should
> be? ie a rectangle on a wall.
I bet you think Victorian art is sentimental, yet you claim to be touched
by Georgina Starr. I ROTFL at the irony of it. As for rectangles on the
wall, no. I do not care whether the art is on the wall, the floor or the
ceiling, or even in the kitchen cabinet. I do not care what medium is
used, or where it is put, as long as it is appropriate, intelligent,
skilfully made and pleasing to the senses.
Bruce Attah.
W.S. Parker
> Mdeli wrote:
> >
> > wsp <w...@olympus.net> wrote:
> >
> > >I don't expect anything really important to come out of this forum
> > >because someone makes a good point and the next person misses it
> > >entirely (because of lack of what? education? experience?) Or someone
> > >comes along and has to express his anger or prejudice; that's the end of
> > >it for me.
> >
> > Yes. Read only those who agree with you.
> >
> > >I mean I don't spend much time here or elsewhere because we are trying
> > >to have a very specialized conversation at a cocktail party, no...
> > >better, at an octoberfest!
> >
> > Right. Get drunk..
> >
> > >Too many distractions made by anyone who
> > >comes along. Is there a MODERATED fine arts newsgroup?
> >
> > Yes. You can read any of about fifty artzy-fartzy
> > magazines and you will get fifty yeatrs of "moderated
> > discussion" one sided discussion. That way you needn't
> > ever again get upset. Bye bye.
> >
> > Mani DeLi
> > ---no skill no art
>
> pissed off or missing the point! How about a effort spent toward
> something constructive? I'd like to read alot of the constructive stuff.
>
> All the points you make here seem impulsive and designed for their
> immediate impact; if you consider each a little longer they are clearly
> not thought out. For example, there is no fruitful comparison between a
> moderated newsgroup and an art magazine which would satisfy my stated
> interests here. Except for the miniscule editorial pages, the latter
> does not present a discussion opportunity into which anyone may hope to
> enter (their ticket being a thoughtful response).
>
> Should I go on about the "get drunk" thing?.
>
> Thanks for demonstrating the point I make; be assured this does *not*
> make me happy.
>
W.S. Parker
Mdeli wrote:
>
> Albedo <alb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> >Mdeli wrote:
> The media have consistantly supported what I call
> Modern Academic Art as the great art of this century to
> the exclusion of what they label as kitsch,
> illustration and commercial.
>
> >intellectually inclined as you would have us believe, then you would
> >have to read every assertion in an article on an individual basis
> >checking the validity before concluding the whole thing worthless.
>
> find massive evidence to counter my assertion.
>
Oh heck, please don't bother making footnotes for your asserted
opinions?
> Well see if you can find a mass of articles in any
> popular artzy fartzy publication that blasts Picasso or
> Matisse's draftsmanship or a negitive opinion on
> Cezanne or Mondrian.
This means they are good artists.
>
> Mani DeLi
>
> ...no skill no art
skill, the art of surgery!
W.S. Parker
Bruce Attah wrote:
>
> In article <AE78B8179...@reinwood.demon.co.uk>,
> dar...@reinwood.demon.co.uk (Darren Reynolds) wrote:
he can tell you're guessing
>The 'leading' Abstract Expressionists are key members of the
> modernist canon. That their style died out in less than a decade because
> it was simply too boring to endure is by-the-by.
"boring" a word used also by super models.
>
> Brilliant display of modernist thinking. Because it was done a hundred
> years ago, it follows that it is a hundred years out of date. Sorry,
> mate: _real_ art doesn't date that way. If it's good, it pretty well
> stays good.
when its good its real goog, when it's bad it's better? A true
arbiter of taste, which is a habit you know
> What does it mean to say that a picture is 'chocolate box art' or
> 'buiscuit tin art'. Basically, it means that somebody thought the picture
> was good enough to put on their chocolate box or their buiscuit tin. If
> it happens that the person making the choice is someone with good taste,
> then good art may well end up on food packaging.
ah, so you are a Duchamp scholar.
>
> The appearance of a work of art as an embellishment to consumer goods or
> their packaging is proof, that the work is seen as valuable -- and capable
> of indicating, or even enhancing, the value of the thing to which it is
> attached. It is also proof that acceptance of the value of the work is
> fairly uncontroversial. No-one is going to use a work of art as a
> marketing tool for their product if the result is likely to be that
> prospective customers are put off.
Gee, I *did* not know that!!
>
> It is this suggestion of uncontroversiality that gives 'chocolate box art'
> its cachet of insult to a modernist. 'Surely, art that everyone agrees is
> good cannot possibly be good?' So thinks the modernist. Again, the
> modernist is wrong. Uncontroversiality is no more proof of badness than
> is controversiality proof of goodness
Speaking for all modernists here...
>
> So ingrained is this idea that work must be controversial (and, more to
> the point, disliked by the majority) to be good, that modernists rewrite
> history so that all their favourite artists die unpraised: David,
> Gericault, Modigliani and many others have undergone this treatment; and
> of course, when a _bad_ artist dies unpraised, the same is elevated to the
> status of genius.
There go those modernists go again...DARN!
W.S. Parker
There those modernists go again...DARN!
W.S. Parker
Bruce Attah wrote:
>
> In article <AE78B8179...@reinwood.demon.co.uk>,
> dar...@reinwood.demon.co.uk (Darren Reynolds) wrote:
> Good guess.
everyone can tell you're guessing
>The 'leading' Abstract Expressionists are key members of the
> modernist canon. That their style died out in less than a decade because
> it was simply too boring to endure is by-the-by.
"boring," a word used also by super models.
>
> Brilliant display of modernist thinking. Because it was done a hundred
> years ago, it follows that it is a hundred years out of date. Sorry,
> mate: _real_ art doesn't date that way. If it's good, it pretty well
> stays good.
when it's good it's real good, when it's bad it's better? A true
arbiter of taste, which is a habit you know. I'm sure Abs Ex in its
heyday it was considered boring.
> What does it mean to say that a picture is 'chocolate box art' or
> 'buiscuit tin art'. Basically, it means that somebody thought the picture
> was good enough to put on their chocolate box or their buiscuit tin. If
> it happens that the person making the choice is someone with good taste,
> then good art may well end up on food packaging.
ah, so you are a Duchamp scholar.
>
> The appearance of a work of art as an embellishment to consumer goods or
> their packaging is proof, that the work is seen as valuable -- and capable
> of indicating, or even enhancing, the value of the thing to which it is
> attached. It is also proof that acceptance of the value of the work is
> fairly uncontroversial. No-one is going to use a work of art as a
> marketing tool for their product if the result is likely to be that
> prospective customers are put off.
Gee, I *did* not know that!! Glad you said it twice.
>
> It is this suggestion of uncontroversiality that gives 'chocolate box art'
> its cachet of insult to a modernist. 'Surely, art that everyone agrees is
> good cannot possibly be good?' So thinks the modernist. Again, the
> modernist is wrong. Uncontroversiality is no more proof of badness than
> is controversiality proof of goodness
Speaking about all modernists here... Luckily I know a few Edwardian
Modernists.
>
> So ingrained is this idea that work must be controversial (and, more to
> the point, disliked by the majority) to be good, that modernists rewrite
> history so that all their favourite artists die unpraised: David,
> Gericault, Modigliani and many others have undergone this treatment; and
> of course, when a _bad_ artist dies unpraised, the same is elevated to the
> status of genius.
There go those modernists go again...DARN!
W.S. Parker
JKearman wrote:
>>
> Rebellion is as natural as the weather. Change is rarely orderly or
> linear. There will always be rebellion, in the arts and in politics. The
> nature of things being what it is, rebellion is necessary to progress,
> but--rebellion does not necessarily lead to progress. In other words,
> rebelliousness is not enough. Enter technique, etc.
>
> Jim Kearman
Rebell on Jim! Progress the technique of rebellion.
W.S. Parker
Wheew, at last a glimmer of hope, now if I only had a bus!
W.S. Parker
Darren Reynolds wrote:
>
> In article <52umk7$o...@news.interlog.com>,
> hu...@interlog.com (Mdeli) wrote:
>
> >>>Why does an artist have to be revolting. Did you learn
> >>>this in school?
>
> What is this school you keep going on about? My experience of art school is
> that there is certainly no kind of 'brainwashing' going on. It would be too
> much like hard work for the tutors/lecturers for a start! You're left very
> >It means that your brother can do something you can't
> >do.
> >
>
> Exactly! And this seems to be what you think an artist should be. Skilled,
> like an engineer.
>
> Darren
It's been a few days... notice the silence, I guess he changed his mind
and sees the points you are making.
W.S. Parker
Mdeli wrote:
> I never had audience problems. I was a tuition free
> student for most of my school days. I won my best
> scholarship to Europe by the vote of Clement Greenberg
> because I could also produce a big schmier when
> necessity called for it. While I was making a living as
> a painter I always sold well. I frequently had problems
> with art galleries which didn’t pay me and I never got
> bad reviews. The media never directly bothered me.
> However I believe they could provide something better
> than what on balance was forty years of stupidity. As
> to schools I have experienced both ends of the
> spectrum. My opinion of their worst aspects comes from
> seeing and speaking to the failures they produce
Read this carefully and you can understand high opinionation.
>
> The institutions rarely produce con artists they
> produce mostly failures. Con artists are successful and
> amusing, failures are less bearable.
So, you've met an amusing con artist, or are you making this stuff up?
Now wait a minute, who's less bearable?
>
> From my book, "No Skill No Art"
A book? How much? Do you have a home page too? What is the URL,
> The term "modern art", written in small letters,
> roughly refers to the whole spectrum of contemporary
> art. However this book will primarily concentrate on a
> particular facet of modern art namely MODERN ACADEMIC
> ART or MAA as it will be abbreviated throughout this
> book.
Okay, that's MAA (wink) right?
I use this term to categorize those most familiar
> works which inhabit the modern wings of all museums and
> which are critically accepted to rank as the great
> masterpieces produced during this century. I call this
> Modern "Academic" Art because like the Academic work
> of the last century its theories and styles dominate
> teaching and practice and it is considered
> quintessentially influential on all other contemporary
> work.
Kinda backwards isn't it, I mean Van Gogh (is he skillful enough for
you?) is used as an academic artist? I assume so, so you mean HE want to
an academy? No., you mean we study him and that would naturally lead
people to paint like him? So anyone who paints with his skill level
would be greatly admired by you? Why not just get the postcard? I mean I
don't get this, but I guess you are using a word which has a ring to it
which resonates with you and apply it to entire wings of museums/ Am I
getting this right?
> .
> Let me emphasize that the term MAA. as used here does
> not refer to all contemporary artwork but only to those
> exalted masterpieces of this century ranked by our most
> important critics as equal or superior to the greatest
> classical art of the past.
Doesn't apply to all, now I am curious, where can I get your book?
>
> Mani DeLi
W.S. Parker
Bruce Attah wrote:
A total rejection of modernism's basic tenets is required if
> the arts of painting and sculpture are to be revived from their
> century-long torpor.
I dare ya!
W.S. Parker
> ...no skill no art
Now what does this have to do with your book?
Bruce Attah
Too late. I've done it.
Darren Reynolds
In article <Bruce.Attah-08...@support-saturn.isltd.insignia.com,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
>
>> You don't seem to appreciate that artworks are linked to the times in which
>> they were created. For an example we can return to Cindy Sherman. Her work
>> wouldn't mean anything to a pre-cinema audience because they wouldn't get
>> the references. Her work, as Seurat's, and yes Rembrandt's, are/were
>> informed by the times in which they lived.
>
>I rather think I appreciate the link between art and the times in which it
>is created better than you do.
Slap my wrist - such a delusion of grandeur. As if I could appreciate
anything better than you. Me a mere victim of modernist propaganda and not
knowing it.
>Artists do not need to create specious
>newness or to set up artificial walls between themselves and the past in
>order to reflect the times they live in. You say Cindy Sherman's art
>wouldn't be understood by pre-cinema audiences. Well, let us suppose a
>time machine, then. Think of those pictures of motorbikes and military
>aircraft, all painted in a supposedly outdated, nineteenth century style.
>Take those back with you along with the Cindy Sherman pictures. Plenty of
>high street art is more modern than Cindy Sherman's art in its
>references. Still, to you, with your narrow understanding of modernity,
>such stuff is not modern.
All I'm saying is that art relates to when it is made and that if you
didn't know films then you wouldn't get Cindy Sherman. This wasn't meant as
a definition of art. I didn't say that any images relating to contemporary
life is great art, but merely contemporary. I am trying to point out that,
contrary to some modernist ideas in fact, we are all children of our times
and not isolated from them, or shouldn't be. Artists shouldn't live in a
vacuum - can't live in a vacuum.
Anyway Sherman's work has something to say about contemporary life - it is
a commentary. Unlike an illustration of military aircraft which would tell
us less than an engineers drawing of one.
>
>Yet art need not be "modern" in this sense to be good. An artist may
>choose for subject matter one of those eternal verities: love, death,
>birth. There is no necessity that the work must be incomprehensible to
>past generations in order to successfully reflect the thought and feeling
>of the present. Indeed, work that is modern in its references can still
>miss the mark of appealing to contemporary sensibilities.
>
If art is going to reflect today(or perhaps you would rather we ignored
it), then it is by definition not going to be fully comprehensible to past
generations. As soon as you step outside your door there is late 2oth
century all around you, which would mean nothing to Michelangelo. Even our
attitudes to, definitions of, 'love, death, birth' change. Are you saying
that shouldn't, or needn't, enter you're work? Paint a hay wain instead?
The only way to be contemporary is to draw from contemporary culture. And
it is the artists who want to be contemporary who have the most to say to
us.
Out of interest what 'contemporary' artists, in the literal, working today
sense, do you admire, respect, 'like'?
Darren
Bruce Attah
e.Attah-0810...@support-saturn.isltd.insignia.com <AE8199949...@reinwood.demon.co.uk>
Organization: Insignia Solutions
In article <AE8199949...@reinwood.demon.co.uk>,
dar...@reinwood.demon.co.uk (Darren Reynolds) wrote:
> In article <Bruce.Attah-08...@support-saturn.isltd.insignia.com,
> Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
>
> >
> >> You don't seem to appreciate that artworks are linked to the times in which
> >> they were created....
> >
> >I rather think I appreciate the link between art and the times in which it
> >is created better than you do.
>
> Slap my wrist...
Well, that's precisely what you seemed to be asking for with that earlier
remark.
I had said:
> >Artists do not need to create specious
> >newness or to set up artificial walls between themselves and the past in
> >order to reflect the times they live in...
> All I'm saying is that art relates to when it is made and that if you
> didn't know films then you wouldn't get Cindy Sherman. This wasn't meant as
> a definition of art. I didn't say that any images relating to contemporary
> life is great art, but merely contemporary. I am trying to point out that,
> contrary to some modernist ideas in fact, we are all children of our times
> and not isolated from them, or shouldn't be. Artists shouldn't live in a
> vacuum - can't live in a vacuum.
Well, if that's ALL you were saying, then I must apologise for reading too
much into your text. But I have not forgotten that you also dismissed
certain sorts of contemporary painting on the ground that they employed
the "century old" techniques of impressionism. You made it clear that you
believe that artists _should_ take deliberate steps to sever themselves
from the past in order to be modern. Were it not for that, I could almost
agree with the paragraph you write above. The only parts I would object
to are your proposal that artists "shouldn't" be isolated from their time
and "shouldn't" live in a vacuum. I do not require that artists either
should or should not be artists of their own time. I do not think an
artist can quite be separated from contemporary life, but it is possible
for one to be nearly so. Blake would be an example of an artist whose
work did not much reflect contemporary trends. Such isolation is neither
good nor bad, and I would wish neither to recommend it nor to prohibit it.
> Anyway Sherman's work has something to say about contemporary life - it is
> a commentary. Unlike an illustration of military aircraft which would tell
> us less than an engineers drawing of one.
Really? What profound things does Sherman's art say? Does it tell us
anything that is not already commonplace about its supposed subject
matter? Do paintings of military aircraft _really_ make no comment
whatsoever? Why the choice of subject matter? Why the particular
presentation? Pictures of this kind are never _entirely_ mute, even
though they have no ambition to say much.
> >Yet art need not be "modern" in this sense to be good. An artist may
> >choose for subject matter one of those eternal verities: love, death,
> >birth. There is no necessity that the work must be incomprehensible to
> >past generations in order to successfully reflect the thought and feeling
> >of the present. Indeed, work that is modern in its references can still
> >miss the mark of appealing to contemporary sensibilities.
> >
>
> If art is going to reflect today(or perhaps you would rather we ignored
> it), then it is by definition not going to be fully comprehensible to past
> generations. As soon as you step outside your door there is late 2oth
> century all around you, which would mean nothing to Michelangelo.
If we're doing time-machine experiments again, then I suggest that
Michelangelo would find this century _strange_, but far from meaningless.
> Even our
> attitudes to, definitions of, 'love, death, birth' change. Are you saying
> that shouldn't, or needn't, enter you're work?
Of course not.
> Paint a hay wain instead?
If that's what you want to do. Just do it with all your intelligence and
all your skill.
> The only way to be contemporary is to draw from contemporary culture.
That particular postmodernist notion is completely FALSE. Artists may
choose to draw from Mayan culture, or choose to attempt to avoid all
cultural references whatsoever, and yet be utterly of their times. Was
Constable, who rejected cultural reference, not a man of his times? Were
Poynter and Moreau not nineteenth-century figures, rather than Classical
ones? Quoting contemporary cultural references in an attempt to "be
contemporary" will only result in the work taking on a second-hand look,
with a built-in propensity to cliche and intrusive self-consciousness or
snobbery -- and when _everyone_ is doing it, the result is an insular,
vacuous art world detached from real life.
> And
> it is the artists who want to be contemporary who have the most to say to
> us.
I beg to differ. They are trying to be contemporary because they have
little of consequence to say. They fear neglect for the very reason of
their lack of purpose, so the desperation to seem modern (and not be left
behind) leads them to peacock-gimmickry as they clamour for the attention
of a tiny few critics, curators and collectors.
>
> Out of interest what 'contemporary' artists, in the literal, working today
> sense, do you admire, respect, 'like'?
S'funny that you should ask me that. Did you not recently ask me which
female artists I admire? Seems to be a favourite line of questioning with
you. Well, this time I will not oblige. Rather, I will return to a point
I raised earlier. You insisted that a person who painted in an
Impressionist style was failing to be modern because he or she was using a
style that was a century old. Impressionism emerged in the 1860s;
Expressionism in the 1890s; Pre-Raphaelitism in the 1840s; Realism (in
one understanding of that word) in about the 1820s. The leading (in terms
of art-world reputation) figurative painters of today paint in styles
recognizably Realist, Expressionist, and Pre-Raphaelite. Some have
adopted styles that hark back to earlier centuries. They do not paint in
Impressionist or Pointillist styles. Could it be that reasons _other_
than the mere _age_ of the techniques artists employ dictate their
choices?
Bruce Attah.
Darren Reynolds
In article <Bruce.Attah-09...@support-saturn.isltd.insignia.com,
Bruce...@insignia.co.uk (Bruce Attah) wrote:
>
>Really? What profound things does Sherman's art say? Does it tell us
>anything that is not already commonplace about its supposed subject
>matter? Do paintings of military aircraft _really_ make no comment
>whatsoever? Why the choice of subject matter? Why the particular
>presentation? Pictures of this kind are never _entirely_ mute, even
>though they have no ambition to say much.
>
Okay so Sherman's art tells us nothing whilst paintings of military
aircraft of course says something? You're trying to have it all ways here.
>
>> >Yet art need not be "modern" in this sense to be good. An artist may
>> >choose for subject matter one of those eternal verities: love, death,
>> >birth. There is no necessity that the work must be incomprehensible to
>> >past generations in order to successfully reflect the thought and feeling
>> >of the present. Indeed, work that is modern in its references can still
>> >miss the mark of appealing to contemporary sensibilities.
>> >
>>
>> Paint a hay wain instead?
>
>If that's what you want to do. Just do it with all your intelligence and
>all your skill.
>
Just how do you paint a hay wain intelligently?
>
>> The only way to be contemporary is to draw from contemporary culture.
>
>That particular postmodernist notion is completely FALSE. Artists may
>choose to draw from Mayan culture, or choose to attempt to avoid all
>cultural references whatsoever, and yet be utterly of their times. Was
>Constable, who rejected cultural reference, not a man of his times? Were
>Poynter and Moreau not nineteenth-century figures, rather than Classical
>ones? Quoting contemporary cultural references in an attempt to "be
>contemporary" will only result in the work taking on a second-hand look,
>with a built-in propensity to cliche and intrusive self-consciousness or
>snobbery -- and when _everyone_ is doing it, the result is an insular,
>vacuous art world detached from real life.
>
If Constable was a man of his times then his times must have entered his
work. And the contemporary culture today is far more pervasive than in his
day. As for the secondhand look - Constable's Hay Wain is a sign in paint
for something that already exists. It, too, is secondhand.
>> Out of interest what 'contemporary' artists, in the literal, working today
>> sense, do you admire, respect, 'like'?
>
>S'funny that you should ask me that. Did you not recently ask me which
>female artists I admire? Seems to be a favourite line of questioning with
>you. Well, this time I will not oblige.
You make it sound as though I'm asking for family secrets. I simply thought
that seen as you stand up there rubbishing contemporary art with a relish,
it was a pertinent question. I'm not that bothered, however.
> Rather, I will return to a point
>I raised earlier. You insisted that a person who painted in an
>Impressionist style was failing to be modern because he or she was using a
>style that was a century old. Impressionism emerged in the 1860s;
>Expressionism in the 1890s; Pre-Raphaelitism in the 1840s; Realism (in
>one understanding of that word) in about the 1820s. The leading (in terms
>of art-world reputation) figurative painters of today paint in styles
>recognizably Realist, Expressionist, and Pre-Raphaelite. Some have
>adopted styles that hark back to earlier centuries. They do not paint in
>Impressionist or Pointillist styles. Could it be that reasons _other_
>than the mere _age_ of the techniques artists employ dictate their
>choices?
>
>
>
Well I'm not sure which artists you refer to. But at a guess I would say
it's a case of reacting against modernism, which is no bad thing. However,
that neo-classical stuff of the eighties was dreadful.
Darren
Mdeli
"W.S. Parker" <w...@olympus.net> wrote:
I guess that when I stop being lazy and finish the
final edit and put it on the web you can order it and
find out.
MD