The Art of the Getaway
Alex Jay Berman
pleasure of taking in all the paintings of the old masters from the
sixteenth century on before looking into the moreabstract works of the
later ones.
My companion didn't really "get" most of the abstract works, so I was
trying to explain the appeal of the works of Magritte, Duchamp,
Brancusi, Mondrian, and other abstract and "Movement" painters and
sculptors.
I think she was starting to get it--though, in some cases, I had to
fall back on the aphorism "Art is what you can get away with." I
pointed out that a lot of the art was inherent in the fact that people
like Duchamp and Magritte were playing with people's minds--if you got
the joke, then it was art.
I used as an example the painting of Al Held Jr.'s that hangs in The
Museum of Modern Art.
It's a large painting--nine feet by nine feet, approximately. The
whole of the painting is a light (maybe white; I forget) canvas,
seemingly blank, save for two small right triangles, one at the top
edge of the painting in the center, and one correspondingly at the
bottom. The top triangle is positioned flush against the frame with
its hypotenuse facing left-left center (the second largest side is at
the top; the small side is on the right); the bottom triangle is the
same, but flipped both horizontally and vertically (small side to the
left).
Visualize that a moment.
Can you think what the painting's name might be?
It's called "The Big N". Now that, to me, is funny--the art is in the
joke.
This argument seemed to be getting through to my companion.
Then we walked into the Contemporary wing.
My argument pretty much fell apart right there.
In one corner of the gallery was a pile of rocks with mirrors behind
it.
No care had been given to pile the rocks to suggest anything; it was
just shoved up against the corner made by the two intersecting
mirrors.
My companion looked at me and muttered, "Art."
There was also another minigallery, in which was held a ten-canvas
series by Cy Twombly, based on the travels of Odysseus.
The materials cited in the title plaques were said to be grahite and
crayon.
It was a ten-canvas (BIG canvases, mind) series of scribbles.
Scribbles with perhaps a word or phrase haphazardly scrawled across
them to indicate what each painting was meant to represent.
Now, when I say "scribbles", I'm not commenting on the skill of the
artist--they were SCRIBBLES. I like Jackson Pollock's work--there's
something in there that appeals to me. Similarly, LeRoy Neiman's work
always interests me--he is able to coax compelling images out of what,
at their core, are haphazardly applied lines and dots of paint.
This series of supposedly Odysseyan paintings was the work of a
Ritalin-deprived toddler.
Still, there it hung in the PMA, so art it had to be.
I suppose it DID fit Scott McCloud (UNDERSTANDING COMICS)'s
description of art, that being any human activity not directly related
to procreation or day-to-day survival, but ...
Anyway.
Can anyone think of any examples of this sort of "what you can get
away with" approach in writing?
Alex Jay Berman
ZeroFund
>Can anyone think of any examples of this sort of
>"what you can get away with" approach in writing?
nope.
Julie Fitzgerald
for laughing so hard. Seems the guards thought we were on drugs, but really
I'd just had my first double espresso.
Alex Jay Berman wrote in message <376ab4d1...@news.erols.com>...
>Anyway.
>Can anyone think of any examples of this sort of "what you can get
>away with" approach in writing?
>
>Alex Jay Berman
SereneBabe
[snip]
> Can anyone think of any examples of this sort of "what you can get
> away with" approach in writing?
Sheesh, the name is escaping me.
That lame-oh who wrote "Generation X" -- Douglas Copland, maybe?
That shit pissed me off the whole time I was reading... though I didn't even
get half-way through either of his books I tried reading before I threw them
across the room. My response is often similar to art I feel is pushing the
same sort of limit.
Again, I'm forgetting the artist's name, but that guy who put a basketball in
plastic pisses me off in the same way. I feel mocked when I see exhibits of
that sort of work.
By the way, how can you "explain the appeal" of any art? I don't mean to be
abrasive or rude, but isn't that sort of condescending? Perhaps you just
meant, "why it appeals to me?"
Heather
****************
"It's All About Me!" a weekly column by SereneBabe
http://members.aol.com/serenebabe/index.html
June 16, 1999: "Growing Up"
guest column by Christopher Tulley
Leonie
But what seems trashy and worthless to me is not necessarily trashy and
worthless reading to everyone. It is all in the eye and the mind of the
beholder which is what the creative arts are all about.
Try reading the original untampered versions of Chicot the Jester or
Jane Eyre for example. Some of those sentences last for two pages!
(slight exaggeration but you get the point.) Now I will persist in
reading these 'novels' because they are famed classics and I want to
give them the benefit of the doubt simply because of their reputation
but seriously if I came across an author writing with so much
punctuation and frilly descriptions today, with no reputation to fall
back on, I doubt I would put in as much of an effort to read it.
I think people get away with a lot in writing but some people won't see
it that way as to them they are considered a genius. I enjoy sci-fi but
a friend of mine "doesn't get it" and consequently doesn't think much of
the style of book at all. However your examples of the contemporary art
pieces had me wondering as well. It didn't sound very "artistic" to me
but I tend to give whoever the benefit of the doubt as people out there
DO buy that stuff and DO like it - god knows why! I'm just happy in the
fact that there are many diverse styles of creativity out there but that
they are only there for whoever wants them. And ultimately want creates
need. Let's just hope fewer and fewer people will want the 'art' you
described therefore to slay the need. ;-)
Leonie.
Alex Jay Berman wrote:
>
> While at the Philadelphia Museum of Art last weekend, I had the
> pleasure of taking in all the paintings of the old masters from the
> sixteenth century on before looking into the moreabstract works of the
> later ones.
<snip>
> Anyway.
> Can anyone think of any examples of this sort of "what you can get
> away with" approach in writing?
>
> Alex Jay Berman
Will Salt
Alex Jay Berman wrote:
>
>
> Anyway.
> Can anyone think of any examples of this sort of "what you can get
> away with" approach in writing?
>
> Alex Jay Berman
I remember a play by (I think) David Lodge, in which one of the main
characters was a writer who produced a novel consisting of 250
completely blank pages, the entire "story" being in the one-paragraph
dedication.
OK, I admit, it was fictional, but if it _had_ been real...
Will
Alex Jay Berman
<seren...@earthlink.net> wrote:
<circumspectly circumcised>
>By the way, how can you "explain the appeal" of any art? I don't mean to be
>abrasive or rude, but isn't that sort of condescending? Perhaps you just
>meant, "why it appeals to me?"
Exactly.
Perhaps I should have said, "explained the appeal of the art TO ME".
I'm still trying to get over the rockpile.
How that could have been held in the same regard as the nearby
Brancusis (the bases of some of which were restored--and in some cases
recreated--by the father of a friend) escapes me entirely.
Still, that just speaks to the broad scope of what "art" can be.
Ah, well.
Alex Jay Berman
-- no artist, of course ...
Jerry Kindall
wrote:
> Alex Jay Berman wrote: [snip]
> > Can anyone think of any examples of this sort of "what you can get
> > away with" approach in writing?
>
> Sheesh, the name is escaping me.
>
> That lame-oh who wrote "Generation X" -- Douglas Copland, maybe?
Close. Coupland.
I never read "Generation X," but "Microserfs" is a quite entertaining
and fairly realistic portrayal of geek culture.
--
Jerry Kindall <mailto:kin...@mail.manual.com> Technical Writing, etc.
Manual Labor <http://www.manual.com/> We Wrote the Book!
"He is often brusque, which can be mistaken for nasty." -- Carol Flynt
You have been warned!
Ajcarol1
>> Alex Jay Berman wrote: [snip]
>> > Can anyone think of any examples of this sort of "what you can get
>> > away with" approach in writing?
>>
I'm thinking of that top ten novel that turned out to have been written by
twenty-some writers, one chapter each, on a whim. Naked Came the Dead, I think
it was titled. It was many years ago, and a Detroit Free Press reporter was one
of the twenty. He wrote about the lark for the paper when the truth was told.
Carol Schmidt
Carol Thomas
>I'm thinking of that top ten novel that turned out to have been written by
>twenty-some writers, one chapter each, on a whim. Naked Came the Dead, I think
>it was titled. It was many years ago, and a Detroit Free Press reporter was one
>of the twenty. He wrote about the lark for the paper when the truth was told.
Naked Came the Stranger by Penelope Ashe, a pseudonym representing a
collaboration of 20 journalists. Published in 1969.
Carol
(I prefer the spoof: Naked Came the Manatee, by Carl Hiaasen and 12
other mystery writers. Pretty funny stuff.)
Alex Jay Berman
wrote:
Yup; exactly what I was going to say.
"Manatee" is cute as all hell--and, if I'm correct, was started on the
Web by a group of Florida writers including Hiassen, Dave Barry,
and--damn--what's her name--the one with the interesting name (I keep
thinking of the singer Me'Shell Ndegiocello or the mystery novelist
Ngaio Marsh, but that's not it), one of whom (unless I misremember)
was just an average schlub whose chapter submission was judged good
enough to get in the final product--or was that another book?
No matter what, it's a fun spoof.
Alex Jay Berman