philosophy and art: confliction?
Alison
>Let's start this off simple: I like music, and I like philosophical
>disscussion. What I have run across here though is a realization that
>I find shocking; artistic expression and philosophical viewpoint
>expression don't seem to work toghether.
>
>Now, I am not saying that philosophers can't be artists, that would be
>wrong. What I am saying is that in the process of creating art, the
>human mind seems incapable of expressing deeper mentality without
>tainting the result. Using rap music as an example (I listen to a lot
>of it, so....), there is a huge gap in quality when you take
>the "garden variety", with it's raw power and delivery, and compare it
>to the more high minded material. It's almost like conciousness ends
>up making lyricists into "holier than thou", bohemian, laid back
>invertebrates that all rhyme in a monotone.
I have two questions here: Firstly, what do you mean by "expressing
deeper mentality without tainting the result" ? and secondly: how do you
measure the *quality* of the rap music - or of any other form of art ?
>
>Another thing I have noticed is the phenomenon known as "auto-
>subconcious art", where people draw or paint something with no thought
>put in besides what comes first. I appreciate the idea, but this
>speaks a very negative thing about the human mind, namely the fact that
>we can't understand it unless we don't try to. If not for
>psychological studies over the past century, we would actually know
>even less about the human mind than we know now, a scary thought given
>the cult of majority stupidity we currently are working to get rid of.
> On another side of the topic, how do we know whether or not what
>it is we are doing is truly a result of subconcious thought? For
>example, I could just splash some paint on a canvas, sign my name on
>it, and say that I did it "from my subconcious", but do you know
>whether or not I did?
Is that important ? What would you do with it after you signed it ? If
you just signed it and put it away in the kitchen draw it would have no
relevance. If you signed it and took it to a gallery to display it, do
you think that they would show it ?
> As for what it is that I do, I don't claim to have my subconcious
>in check. Instead, when I write something, I try to clear my mind of
>all prior thought, then burst forth with brainstorms at random, writing
>down what I think. This way, I'm not doing some phony "subconcious"
>art; I am really reaching into my concious mind, pushing the button
>marked "reset", and scrawling down the code that flashes against my
>intellectual monitor.
>
>Let me know what you think. I want to be buried in opinions up to my
>eyeballs, be they negative or positive.
Well you need some artists to comment ! I cross posted this to an arts
forum where with any luck you will get some very challenging posts.
Cheers !
--
Alison A Raimes
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
jim hayes
I'ld like to use Hamlet to comment, ( I'm not an expert, just enjoy the
play)...
The argument has been made that Hamlet is a man of words and not deeds.
Laertes is a man of action and not words.
Fortinbras is a man of words and deeds, and in the end, is left on the
throne.
"Horatio: O, day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Act I scene V.
"Each man, in his own way, loses his mind."
Russian proverb
--
Jim Hayes
Pixelography: The marriage of silicon and silver.
Images at http://www.jymis.com/~jimhayes
b_ps...@my-deja.com
jim hayes <jimh...@jymis.com> wrote:
>
>
> I'ld like to use Hamlet to comment, ( I'm not an expert, just enjoy
the
> play)...
> The argument has been made that Hamlet is a man of words and not
deeds.
> Laertes is a man of action and not words.
> Fortinbras is a man of words and deeds, and in the end, is left on the
> throne.
>
> "Horatio: O, day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
> Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
> There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
> Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
>
> Act I scene V.
Now, I don't mean to sound rude, but I don't see the relevence in your
response. Perhaps it is merely going over my head, however I found
nothing that the verse from "hamlet" you provided could have within
that would express your viewpoint.....Now that I look at it more, the
end quote appears to be saying that because of the vastness of this
universe, our individual philosophical opinions are rendered
meaningless. For this, I have a question: Do you feel that mankind
should not question the macrocosm of everyday life, merely because we
are the microcosm of such? Considering the possible answer to said
question, how would we be able to function not even thinking of what is
actually out there, much less what we feel is "what it is", basically
the foundation of philosophy in general: The mere thought that we can
take that which is the essence of intellect of this life, and basically
try to stand it on it's head, to see what happens hypothetically
speaking. Were it not for philosophical disscussion, we would be left
to go through trial and error all of our lives, that all-too-familiar
scenario whereby civilization is pedalling away on a failed "flying
machine", oblivious of the fact that we are becoming closer to the
ground by the second.
I should revise my earlier question, so as to give a simpler
perspective to look at it in:
Are the fleas fools for questioning what animal they are on?
--------------------------------------------
For a profit, any man will be a prophet.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Keith O'Connor
I love the quote.
________tinman end ____________
jim hayes wrote:
>
> I'ld like to use Hamlet to comment, ( I'm not an expert, just enjoy the
> play)...
> The argument has been made that Hamlet is a man of words and not deeds.
> Laertes is a man of action and not words.
> Fortinbras is a man of words and deeds, and in the end, is left on the
> throne.
>
> "Horatio: O, day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
> Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
> There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
> Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
>
> Act I scene V.
>
Alison A Raimes
>
>Now, I don't mean to sound rude, but I don't see the relevence in your
>response. Perhaps it is merely going over my head, however I found
>nothing that the verse from "hamlet" you provided could have within
>that would express your viewpoint....
Didn't you say:
What I have run across here though is a realization that
>I find shocking; artistic expression and philosophical viewpoint
>expression don't seem to work toghether.
>
The Hamlet quote was precise and to the point. We can go into a long
winded debate and argue back and forth until we all hate each other -
Shakespeare was capable, through his art, of showing that artistic
expression and philosophical viewpoint work hand in hand - in fact I
would go further and say that he illustrates that there is no artistic
expression without philosophical viewpoints.
>Are the fleas fools for questioning what animal they are on?
Which goes to show that philosophical viewpoint is impossible without
artistic impression.
--
Alison
jim hayes
----------------------------------------------------
Alison A Raimes wrote:
--
Alison A Raimes
writes
>Give that woman a cigar!<g> Thank you Alison, very succinct...
Hee hee, Jim - that, of course, now has completely different
connotations in the present day use ..... one for which, on
rec.arts.fine I have a certain *international* reputation regarding.
John Haber
the news, let me take pleasure in quoting the judgment, from Judge
Nina Gershorn of the United States District Court in Brooklyn:
>>
There is no federal constitutional issue more grave than the effort by
government officials to censor works of expression and to threaten the
vitality of a major cultural institution as punishment for failing to
abide by governmental demands for orthodoxy.
..the Supreme Court has made clear that although the government is
under no obligation to provide various kinds of benefits, it may not
deny them if the reason for the denial would require a choice between
exercising First Amendment rights and obtaining the benefit. That is,
it may not "discriminate invidiously in such a way as to 'aim at the
suppression of dangerous ideas.' "
The decision to withhold an already appropriated general operating
subsidy from an institution which has been subsidized by the city for
over 100 years, and to eject it from its city-owned building, because
of the mayor's objection to certain works in a current exhibit, is ...
to "discriminate invidiously in such a way as to 'aim at the
suppression of dangerous ideas.' "
... Federal taxpayers in effect pay for the mailing of periodicals
that many of them find objectionable; and they subsidize all manner of
views with which they do not agree, indeed, which they may abhor,
through tax exemptions and deductions given to other taxpayers. State
taxpayers pay the salary for the professor whom the state wants to
fire for speaking out against the state college.
...This of course does not mean that the taxpayers are being required
to "support" a particular viewpoint. On the contrary, the Supreme
Court has rejected similar justifications for the suppression of
ideas.
... The Brooklyn Museum contains art from all over the world, from
many traditions and many centuries. No objective observer could
conclude that the museum's showing of the work of an individual artist
which is viewed by some as sacrilegious constitutes endorsement of
antireligious views by the city or the mayor or, for that matter, by
the museum, any more than the museum's showing of religiously
reverential works constitutes an endorsement by them of religion....
If anything, it is the mayor and the city who by their actions have
threatened the neutrality required of government in the sphere of
religion.
<<
BTW, for once I agree with Mani on something: there are ethical
issues to be explored in museum shows of private collections. I don't
agree, however, in his conclusions.
I wouldn't be eliminating them on policy, since they can give the
public access to work that's normally seen only by a wealthy few. I
also don't agree that most museums are drawing the line now, since
many, alas, like the Guggenheim are making it almost the entire
season.
However, I do worry about pandering to collectors, with accompanying
puffery in museum literature, in the hope of getting some scraps on
their death. That doesn't seem to apply here, where the Saatchi's are
working on the cutting edge and not likely to deaccession any time
soon, and where no single institution is sponsoring the show and thus
begging for the stuff anyhow.
John
John Haber
jha...@haberarts.com
http://www.haberarts.com/
~Artist~
----------
In article <38205b09...@news.psi.ca>, hug...@interlog.com (mdeli)
wrote:
>The System-How brand name artists are created.
>You won't learn about this in art school.
>
That is for SURE!!!!!
Business of art is "You Starve".
Ha!!!!
More Business of Art "Artist are bad at business"
HA!!!!!
Buy those myths and sing thoses songs kids = TOTAL COP OUTS.
Makes it easier for those of us who question authority.
>Among the major things critics, museum curators and top of the line
>gallery owners must do in order to maintain the high prices of brand
>name Bluechip Modern Artists are:
Like you know Mani - You are too negative to find out the real truth of
create your own reality.
>
>-make sure that their artists doesn't lower prices by flooding the
>market. (any Bluechip minimalist can usually knock out works at a
>furious rate and might have a strong desire to do this. )
>
Not the case good work takes years to make and move into the market. That
is if you are going for a major American Market.
>-make sure that imitators are denigrated and ignored. (That's why
>Mondrian imitators are banned.)
Not the case at all. There is no time in the business of art market to deal
with that sort of negative business planning.
>
> -make sure that all aesthetic competition is carefully kept out of
>sight (that's why you rarely see paintings by illustrators like Norman
>Rockwell and the finest realism and surrealism in art museums The holy
>sites which house Modern Academic Art must be kept pure)
NOt the case either.
>
>What is kept off the market is as important as what goes on the market
Can be true in some cases but most deliberate attempts to keep anything on
or off market are not nearly where you seem to put importance Mani. I know
some of the top people in this business and what they do every day - yes _
with the big boys and your description is not it.
>
>
>Did you ever wonder how all that incompetent minimal
>practically-nothing-artwork and no-skill-realism gets into the modern
>art sections of museums and those richy collections? Or, why artworks
>which look worthy of little more than a passing glance attained that
>astronomical price range you read about?
Timing and hard work simple as that - trust me I am in the midst of it all.
>
>Here are some of the reasons why brand-name creators of Blue Chip
>Modern Art get all that attention while thousands of others who create
>much the same thing rarely sell anything?
I doubt your research is very founded but I will read.
>
>The brand name modern artist is not really the result of any public
>consensus.
Wrong.
He is more often then not the creation of art dealers,
You don't get the dealers without the public...simple as that.
They are less likely to risk anything than a critic!
Public at the start important after you enter the dealers ring - dealer
takes over and thank god you have nearly swum round the ocean.
>critics, and museum curators working together much like stock market
>insiders. Raising art market prices often requires little more than
No they are not ~ they barely know their own staffs they are so over worked.
>quite agreements among small groups representing these professions who
>own and speculate in modern art and profit from it.
No such thing...there is true deep respect for the risktakers and the
business of art on those levels. Trust me I am getting to them now.
It is not like your negative vision Mani. If you only knew how easy people
recognize hard work and comitment to the arts you would get out form behind
the computer and do it.
>
>Essentially all it takes is few insiders geting together each agreeing
>to do his part in order to push a particular artist. The museum
Support from the art community comes from the aritsts. Like it or not your
art peers know hard work and the ones who are really working and succeeding
and they support it often. That is where most critics I have seen hear
besides their own eyes.
Mani this is art not politics...thank god for that....FREEDOM!!!!!!
No one is buying critics....NO WAY!
All the cirtics I know are very independent even more so than artists and
even more opinionated on the art!!!!
Heaven help you Mani if you think that the critics are bought.
No way.
Artists tend to stay away fromthe bought critics but if you are emerging
just to get your work into a art magazine even if it is paid can help as you
will have tear sheets and there is a place for them.
I have had the luck not ot have taken that route but I have seen other
artists use it to theri advantage.
>curator agrees to exhibit or purchase while the critic agrees to do
>his bit of complimenting and the dealer agrees to show and publicize.
No one works like that Mani. At least not that I have seen in NYC or Santa
Fe or even San Jose or San Francisco.
Art Critics are more serious about their academics than art history
teachers!!!!!!!
Main where have you been?
>
>This allows all for all kinds of deals. It can involve pooling money
>in order to invest in an artist they plan to push or marketing what
>they already own.
Wrong again, it takes years of commitment to the arts before most blue chip
and most darn it deserve it after long hard years of work and smart art and
smart business. Nothing wrong with that....nothing at all. They know what
their careers cost! More power to that and if more artist did that you
would all be better off and so would the world economy.
>
>Anyone interested has often read newspaper articles about the sale of
>some now famous modern work that fetched some millions in auction.
Supply and demand Mani - simple.
>These articles usually mention the price, the artist, and the auction
>house very prominently in the headline. They also describe the
>sensational bidding by buyers and mention former prices in comparison
>with the latest. However they rarely mention auction pooling, shill
>bids, auction house extended credit and fake sales.
Rare Mani...very rare.
>
>One of the best price indicators for Modern Art is revealed` at those
>highly publicized Bluechip Modern auctions. Before an important
>auction those who own works by a particular artist will contact one
>another and form a biding pools. These can be large or small. The pool
>members will agree to bid up the auction price of a particular work to
>a certain high value. The obvious intention here is to raise the
I would like to see proof of these Mani, I have never seen this but I may
not be to that level quite yet. I will let you know the day I see it
though.
>selling price of their inventory. If their bidding is successful each
>pays an agreed percentage of the bid price. Should someone other than
>the dealer surpass the pool bid price so much the better for the
>dealers who have inventory. The higher the final bid price for an
>artwork the better for all those who hold that artists work.
And better for the artist. If this is going on good! Art world needs more
respect.
Business is business and we all know art is in short supply on the planet in
the face of malls and mall art reproductions. But I am all for people
loving art in any for and if job public likes a Miro or whatever on paper it
is better than a line painting manufactured artwork from mexico. If they
have taken the time to learn about art and have a poster and an interest the
GREAT!!!!! At least they are a part of something greater on the planet =
ART.
>
>I'm sure any intelligent reader can figure out other variations. The
>point here is that the exhibition, the praise and the prices for brand
>name Blue Chip artwork is to a very high degree controlled by insiders
This is way way later in a career if at all and I highly doubt ther eis much
of this going on in America as I have seen behind some of the biggest most
respected peopel in the gallery business in America and many are just
regular people like you mani who love art!!!!!!
>with the right connections. The actual works of these artists rarely
>represent any consensus public taste as the public is only allowed to
>hear about and see certain works in those places which are acclaimed
>to exhibit great art
Mani - most dealers will not go near you without your proper documentation
of your career!!!!
That all comes from hard work and public recognition. It starts in tiny
cafes, art centers, resturants, billiard halls, college galleries and builds
from there. Not until you have a record do you even start to get
anywhere...you have to have the documentation.
What I have observed in the artworld is that most artists don't take time to
do ALL THE WORK it takes to build a career.
>
>
>
>Mani DeLi
>...no skill no art
Negative attitude no art career.
More like it.
Mattison Fitzgerald
Artist
http://www.rhinode.vcom/M
~Artist~
RAF crowd - the good ones at least. Follow your own theories outlined with
the RAF artists.... if you are so sure of the busines and that formula of
yours!!!!! I am game if you do....totally worth a business risk....what do
you all say....lets let Mani make the RAF crowd into the next blue
chippers....bet most of you would not complain to be there now would
you?????? B U T are you relaly willing to do ALL the work it takes???? I
highly doubt it. It is easier for you all to pose round like what you think
artists are and make up excuses for NOT doing it than doing it. I will be
the first to cheer you all on and hope to be in the crowd when you all
respect yourselves and your art enough to get in there and really make it.
That counts you in too Haber heaven knows this net art needs serious
critical shreading...everyone with a brush and mouse thinks they are an
artist. Not quite!!!!!!...just because I throw a football does not make me
a football player.
Mattison Fitzgrerald
Artist
http://www.rhinodev.com/M
----------
In article <7vnv9r$4s1$1...@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net>, "~Artist~"
mdeli
on how Blue Chip Modern Art prices are created in my essay on my web
page. I'll post this on another thread here.
The editorial (slightly cut) in today's NY Times points out the usual
evidence.
The Judgment on 'Sensation'
Delivering a ringing endorsement of the First Amendment as well as a
stinging rebuke to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
snip.
" She then ordered the mayor to resume city payments to the museum and
end his campaign to evict the museum from city land and to fire its
board of trustees.
(I certainly agree with this---hoiwever read on)
The decision, though welcome to all those who care about freedom of
expression, does not dispel the deep concern raised by disclosures in
Sunday's Times that the museum had solicited hundreds of thousands of
dollars from companies and individuals with a commercial interest in
the exhibition.
The additional details that The Times has produced about this
relationship, as well as several new disclosures, do not in any sense
undercut the museum's First Amendment right to display the art. But
the possibility that a publicly supported museum was being used to
inflate the commercial value of the artists on display has made many
people uneasy, not only the mayor. The new details about the museum's
fund-raising methods will not dispel this unease.
(its the usual stuff. High priced Modern Academic Art is a product of
collusion)
According to The Times, the museum solicited and obtained funds from
an apparently reluctant Mr. Saatchi himself, and then hid his
financial role from the public under the cloak of anonymity. Worse
yet, museum officials misled the press when explicitly asked whether
Mr. Saatchi had provided funding for the exhibition. Museum officials
also raised money from art dealers who represent several of the
artists in the exhibition, and gave Christie's privileged access to
its exhibit halls for business purposes.
The financing revelations may well do more to jeopardize support for
the Brooklyn Museum and its leadership than has exhibiting "Sensation"
itself. The exhibition looks like aesthetic enterprise, the manner of
paying for it like an ethically dubious enterprise.
Museums have usually drawn the line at displaying privately owned
collections. It is a simple standard and an effective one, even if it
is not foolproof. There is no clearer evidence of its value as a
standard than the questions raised by the funding of "Sensation."
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Check out my web page, A Skeptical View of Modern Art and
my book, comments, work at:.
http://www.interlog.com/~hugod/
mdeli
You won't learn about this in art school.
Among the major things critics, museum curators and top of the line
gallery owners must do in order to maintain the high prices of brand
name Bluechip Modern Artists are:
-make sure that their artists doesn't lower prices by flooding the
market. (any Bluechip minimalist can usually knock out works at a
furious rate and might have a strong desire to do this. )
-make sure that imitators are denigrated and ignored. (That's why
Mondrian imitators are banned.)
-make sure that all aesthetic competition is carefully kept out of
sight (that's why you rarely see paintings by illustrators like Norman
Rockwell and the finest realism and surrealism in art museums The holy
sites which house Modern Academic Art must be kept pure)
What is kept off the market is as important as what goes on the market
Did you ever wonder how all that incompetent minimal
practically-nothing-artwork and no-skill-realism gets into the modern
art sections of museums and those richy collections? Or, why artworks
which look worthy of little more than a passing glance attained that
astronomical price range you read about?
Here are some of the reasons why brand-name creators of Blue Chip
Modern Art get all that attention while thousands of others who create
much the same thing rarely sell anything?
The brand name modern artist is not really the result of any public
consensus. He is more often then not the creation of art dealers,
critics, and museum curators working together much like stock market
insiders. Raising art market prices often requires little more than
quite agreements among small groups representing these professions who
own and speculate in modern art and profit from it.
Essentially all it takes is few insiders geting together each agreeing
to do his part in order to push a particular artist. The museum
curator agrees to exhibit or purchase while the critic agrees to do
his bit of complimenting and the dealer agrees to show and publicize.
This allows all for all kinds of deals. It can involve pooling money
in order to invest in an artist they plan to push or marketing what
they already own.
Anyone interested has often read newspaper articles about the sale of
some now famous modern work that fetched some millions in auction.
These articles usually mention the price, the artist, and the auction
house very prominently in the headline. They also describe the
sensational bidding by buyers and mention former prices in comparison
with the latest. However they rarely mention auction pooling, shill
bids, auction house extended credit and fake sales.
One of the best price indicators for Modern Art is revealed` at those
highly publicized Bluechip Modern auctions. Before an important
auction those who own works by a particular artist will contact one
another and form a biding pools. These can be large or small. The pool
members will agree to bid up the auction price of a particular work to
a certain high value. The obvious intention here is to raise the
selling price of their inventory. If their bidding is successful each
pays an agreed percentage of the bid price. Should someone other than
the dealer surpass the pool bid price so much the better for the
dealers who have inventory. The higher the final bid price for an
artwork the better for all those who hold that artists work.
I'm sure any intelligent reader can figure out other variations. The
point here is that the exhibition, the praise and the prices for brand
name Blue Chip artwork is to a very high degree controlled by insiders
with the right connections. The actual works of these artists rarely
represent any consensus public taste as the public is only allowed to
hear about and see certain works in those places which are acclaimed
to exhibit great art
Mani DeLi
Erik A. Mattila
I want to jump in on this thread, but oh my. Last saturday I was writing a
response, got up to take a leak, and when I got back my monitor was dead.
I just got the new one today, got the card installed and now I'm back on
line. All this happened in the middle of some serious work deadlines. So
now I have to pay my dues.
But the good part of it is that I got to do a couple of drawings -
prismacolor - the first art I've done in ages without a GUI perched between
me and the image. I'll scan them soon and post the url and suffer the
punishment.
Erik
Alison A Raimes
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>Are you talking about the cigar, or being sucksinct?
>
>I want to jump in on this thread, but oh my. Last saturday I was writing a
>response, got up to take a leak, and when I got back my monitor was dead.
>I just got the new one today, got the card installed and now I'm back on
>line. All this happened in the middle of some serious work deadlines. So
>now I have to pay my dues.
Which only goes to prove that you should always take a leak sitting down
..... saves blowing up technology ;-)
Alison
tomi...@hotmail.com
yes, this is how the scene goes on with commercial world; money is the
only thing that makes you powerfull and gives you the ability to affect
on things.
BUT;
Big Money itself in most cases means *corruption*. although it might
not smell bad but where it's from and who pays it all in the end. is it
out from other people or is it out from the nature (which is the bigger
but more "accepted" crime here)?.
Art is a great way to wash dirty money. that's what many investors &
tax fraud whores do. same goes for example to all those dirty money for
moneyhungry cults and stuff like that who work in tax free situation;
it's justified because the meaning is "good" but the idea is still
rotten.
Most of the living artists who earn big buck$ are blind corrupted
egoistic fucks who are part of the problem if they aren't filtering the
money in to the right directions. "art heals people", "how do you know
how sublime my work is" - all pretexts and hypocristic bullshit.
The problem is same with museums having sponsored money, they decide
what goes on but do them have the responsibility over that?. not in all
cases; it's just a play of relationships and their own interests.
There was a contemporary work sold in england for at least million last
year named "god". it was a shelf filled with different cans of
medicine. the work can't be considered good from the skill used to make
it but it was "progressive" from the "idea".
who are really benefitting from this shit? who wants to put it on the
wall? i think it's the buyer who gets his dirty moneys washed and the
artist too WHILE it's all ripped from other people's backbones (or just
a lame deal to get a sensation into the air or fame). it would be nice
to know how corrupted the artscene really is as a whole.
-tomi
~Artist~
----------
>High Prizes;
> yes, this is how the scene goes on with commercial world; money is the
>only thing that makes you powerfull and gives you the ability to affect
>on things.
Totally l disagree.
We are restarting the arts & craft movment in Ca and all we did was show up
in 1990 with one moasic at a garden show!!!!!!!
Now look what happened it is all over the country again. I could go on
matters and meows but you all know where that psychodellic cat can go and
what about your ties geekers? and those dockers???? Can't you get them in
psycho.h.e.man.d.e.llic or psycho.healin.man d.e.llic?
That could be nice to go with the bug and those art cars m all.
Downtown Silly Icon Valley is like a bad catholic school for fashion!
Especially the men.
>BUT;
>
>Big Money itself in most cases means *corruption*. although it might
>not smell bad but where it's from and who pays it all in the end. is it
>out from other people or is it out from the nature (which is the bigger
>but more "accepted" crime here)?.
You can always put the cash in good places balances things out.
As the microsoftglobe turns.
H.e.llcat kids you created it.
>
>Art is a great way to wash dirty money. that's what many investors &
>tax fraud whores do. same goes for example to all those dirty money for
You forgot the cocanine money with the CIA in NYC that built SoHo.
>moneyhungry cults and stuff like that who work in tax free situation;
>it's justified because the meaning is "good" but the idea is still
>rotten.
Extrapolate here please?
>
>Most of the living artists who earn big buck$ are blind corrupted
>egoistic fucks who are part of the problem if they aren't filtering the
Musicians maybe....
Have you met them?
Visual artists I have and musicians and sports people and huge ceos, most
are regualr people. I won't list them all because I will be accused of name
dropping.
I have met a few, most are egotistical to keep the space because they are
over run by jealous people, stalkers, and plain just don't have time to talk
to the planet or sign signatures for everyone who asks. They end up having
to pick their battles ~ they are regular people and everyone expects
perfection from them and that is not possible and it is wrong for the public
to do so.
Many viaual artists after a certain point barely show up anymore after a
certain age because it is too much to deal with all the public. Their
careers though are opposite or sports people or musicians who happen very
young. The very young take time to learn and it is sad in America how
unequipped many of the young rock musicians are to handle all the people and
the art they are channeling 0 they can't ground then they get blown out.
Sad.
>money in to the right directions. "art heals people", "how do you know
>how sublime my work is" - all pretexts and hypocristic bullshit.
Try it you might like it!
LOL
I drive round downtown with music on really loud to watch and see how people
are affected by art. It is amazing to see a windowasher wash in rythm or
stop at the chord of U2 twanging.
Art affects them BIG TIME!
>
>The problem is same with museums having sponsored money, they decide
>what goes on but do them have the responsibility over that?. not in all
>cases; it's just a play of relationships and their own interests.
I have a degree in Museum Studies and have worked in all kinds of museums
big, small, modern, science, ocean, natural history, kids and on and on.....
Fundraising and curatorial aver very very very separate. There are huge
papers at least in American on ETHICS!!!!!!! HELLLL.CAT.OOOO Bill
GATES!!!!!! I can guarantee you you are worrying about nothing in the above
paragraph.
>
>There was a contemporary work sold in england for at least million last
>year named "god". it was a shelf filled with different cans of
>medicine. the work can't be considered good from the skill used to make
>it but it was "progressive" from the "idea".
Or it touched the heart of some sick person or the stress level of a hear
surgeon. I used to date a hear surgeon one of the best living today. He
honey was exactly the opposite of artist. No heart all calculation and not
one single ounce of patience for one mistake and talk about stressed out and
out of touch with humaness....exactly why he chased me....artist are in
touch with it....relationship could never work....I knew it...artists and
inventors make the best stuff form mistakes...even if heart surgeons do to
they can never admit it because they might have killed someone in the
process and living with that would be tooo huge day in and day out.
>who are really benefitting from this shit? who wants to put it on the
>wall? i think it's the buyer who gets his dirty moneys washed and the
Ther eis quality of life in art dealings and lots of things you can't ask
but would like to.
>artist too WHILE it's all ripped from other people's backbones (or just
This happens in every field look at technology. I know mothers of 5 working
for assemblers in this valley who have no english for minimum wage while the
CEO's are porsched out with no thinking and they don't eveh have the
courtsey in Silicon Valley to suppor the charaties art or otherwise look at
the stats....the press is everywhere on their lack of giving.
>a lame deal to get a sensation into the air or fame).
It is not what you tink it is honey but it is part of this game just like
sports or music.
I think most artists would like there works accepted without all that...but
I know GW pushed his piano for 10 year up the beach before anyone noticed
and WA too...well except for the kids....but it is always the kids....
it would be nice
>to know how corrupted the artscene really is as a whole.
It is not corrupted as you think. There are alot more good people than you
know. Sure there is dirty money and it is everywhere...so what .... so the
artist takes a smidgen of it back to the ghetto and buys paint tape wood
whatever....hires kids to do a huge mural at least some made it back to some
good....I don't know many artists who hold the money long it seems to drop
back into the stystme on lower levels real fast.
Mattison
http://www.rhino.dev.com/M
Alison A Raimes
inquiry - where the original poster in alt.philosophy stated that
artistic expression and philosophical viewpoint expression don't seem to
work alongside each other. In relation to the threads on the sublime
that are flooding rec.arts.fine it has certainly opened up the
discussion. I know Erik will have something to say on the matter .......
if he stops leaking all over his monitor.......
Rudolf Arnheim in _Visual Thinking_ (1969) wrote that *... the arts are
neglected because they are based on perception, and perception is
disdained because it is not assumed to involve thought. In fact
educators and administrators cannot justify giving the arts an important
position in the curriculum unless they understand that the arts are the
most powerful means of strengthening the perceptual component without
which productive thinking is impossible in every field of academic study
.... What is most needed is not more aesthetics or more esoteric manuals
of art education but a convincing case made for visual thinking quite in
general. Once we understand in theory, we might try to heal in practise
the unwholesome split which cripples the training of reasoning power.*
Thoughts artistic and philosophical invited ;-)
tomi...@hotmail.com
> >High Prizes;
> > yes, this is how the scene goes on with commercial world; money is
the
> >only thing that makes you powerfull and gives you the ability to
affect
> >on things.
>
> Totally l disagree.
of course you disagree; are you ashamed to be rich while the others are
starving?. why communists are turning capitalists after they win in
lotto? open your eyes and join the real world we are here and see how
things are happening. like how your government works, or lawyers.
Things work with money; and in other words *corruption*.
with "powerfull" i didnt mean personal qualities that can be achieved
with example by meditating but i meant how are you fitting into the
society. (although that was subjective for western world)
> We are restarting the arts & craft movment in Ca and all we did was
show up
> in 1990 with one moasic at a garden show!!!!!!!
>
> Now look what happened it is all over the country again. I could go on
> matters and meows but you all know where that psychodellic cat can go
and
> what about your ties geekers? and those dockers???? Can't you get
them in
> psycho.h.e.man.d.e.llic or psycho.healin.man d.e.llic?
>
> That could be nice to go with the bug and those art cars m all.
>
> Downtown Silly Icon Valley is like a bad catholic school for fashion!
> Especially the men.
discuss with normal english, please (i suck too much in it but i hope i
can be understood at least :)
> >BUT;
> >
> >Big Money itself in most cases means *corruption*. although it might
> >not smell bad but where it's from and who pays it all in the end. is
it
> >out from other people or is it out from the nature (which is the
bigger
> >but more "accepted" crime here)?.
>
> You can always put the cash in good places balances things out.
>
> As the microsoftglobe turns.
that's what i do.
fuck microsoft; did you know that it's methods are very questionable,
criminal activities and such; it's always having dozens of bad sues,
etc. monopoly is *never* good for the sake of development. what can you
expect from someone who tries to patent "1's and 0's"?
> H.e.llcat kids you created it.
what does this mean?
> >Art is a great way to wash dirty money. that's what many investors &
> >tax fraud whores do. same goes for example to all those dirty money
for
>
> You forgot the cocanine money with the CIA in NYC that built SoHo.
that's a myth.
> >moneyhungry cults and stuff like that who work in tax free situation;
> >it's justified because the meaning is "good" but the idea is still
> >rotten.
>
> Extrapolate here please?
just check out how all the ridiculous moneyhungry cults you have there
especially in LA are working. many studies of those people who put
money for them have tax frauds in their pockets.
> >Most of the living artists who earn big buck$ are blind corrupted
> >egoistic fucks who are part of the problem if they aren't filtering
the
>
> Musicians maybe....
>
> Have you met them?
>
> Visual artists I have and musicians and sports people and huge ceos,
most
> are regualr people.
dont get me wrong, i dislike the general public too; especially you
americans. Still; back to my point again( i was talking about art, not
music or sports); they aren't real artists *if* they doesnt filter the
money in the right directions. they are fakes if they doesnt live with
respect for eachother.
> >money in to the right directions. "art heals people", "how do you
know
> >how sublime my work is" - all pretexts and hypocristic bullshit.
>
> Try it you might like it!
try what? i have not much to be healed and i know the sublime-level of
my works pretty well (in another words "what/how my works mean for
me") :)
> I drive round downtown with music on really loud to watch and see how
people
> are affected by art. It is amazing to see a windowasher wash in
rythm or
> stop at the chord of U2 twanging.
>
> Art affects them BIG TIME!
the deal was the most earning artists, not the mainstreme musicians.
every people makes art whatever they do, whether they are bankers or
painters or musicians. we are all as important and equal to everyone,
everything else is egoistic bullshit.
> >The problem is same with museums having sponsored money, they decide
> >what goes on but do them have the responsibility over that?. not in
all
> >cases; it's just a play of relationships and their own interests.
>
> I have a degree in Museum Studies and have worked in all kinds of
museums
> big, small, modern, science, ocean, natural history, kids and on and
on.....
i don't support any degrees/bios/resumes or such in art so
your "skills" on paper doesnt have much respect value for me here in
real world. i hate that pieces of artworks aren't mostly appreciated or
viewed after what they are BUT *who* made them. that's the truth.
try it; give dozens of your works for a ugly unknown person from
thirdclass country without a "master art education" and tell him to
exhibit in new york. people will laugh him out.
> Fundraising and curatorial aver very very very separate. There are
huge
> papers at least in American on ETHICS!!!!!!!
HELLLL.CAT.OOOO Bill
> GATES!!!!!! I can guarantee you you are worrying about nothing in
the above
> paragraph.
let's limit the "ethics" discussion to arts here because "ethics" you
have there generally doesnt belong to the group of real etchics.
what has bill gates to do with the ethics: he's the opposite of that
word.
> >There was a contemporary work sold in england for at least million
last
> >year named "god". it was a shelf filled with different cans of
> >medicine. the work can't be considered good from the skill used to
make
> >it but it was "progressive" from the "idea".
>
> Or it touched the heart of some sick person or the stress level of a
hear
> surgeon.
yes, but in another word that was *corruption* again.
> >who are really benefitting from this shit? who wants to put it on the
> >wall? i think it's the buyer who gets his dirty moneys washed and the
>
> Ther eis quality of life in art dealings and lots of things you can't
ask
> but would like to.
i don't have to ask, i admit it is *corruption* how things work.
>
> >artist too WHILE it's all ripped from other people's backbones (or
just
>
> This happens in every field look at technology. I know mothers of 5
working
> for assemblers in this valley who have no english for minimum wage
while the
> CEO's are porsched out with no thinking and they don't eveh have the
> courtsey in Silicon Valley to suppor the charaties art or otherwise
look at
> the stats....the press is everywhere on their lack of giving.
well, they'll (ceos) pay for it later believe me. and what comes to
women who make 5 children they're all assholes; don't multiply, there's
too much stupidity on the gene pool already.
> >a lame deal to get a sensation into the air or fame).
>
> It is not what you tink it is honey but it is part of this game just
like
> sports or music.
> I think most artists would like there works accepted without all
that...but
the game is rotten. accepted? this is what they want - money.
> it would be nice
> >to know how corrupted the artscene really is as a whole.
>
> It is not corrupted as you think. There are alot more good people
than you
> know. Sure there is dirty money and it is everywhere...so what ....
so the
> artist takes a smidgen of it back to the ghetto and buys paint tape
who cares about the people when the real problems are in nature
conservation. get the usa to sign up kioto's air conservation deal
first before supporting some poor kids going to pollute more and more.
look a little further. or look at amazon; the problems are much bigger
than you really think. or what the media have been brainwashed for you.
Ron Peterson
: Rudolf Arnheim in _Visual Thinking_ (1969) wrote that *... the arts are
: neglected because they are based on perception, and perception is
: disdained because it is not assumed to involve thought. In fact
: educators and administrators cannot justify giving the arts an important
: position in the curriculum unless they understand that the arts are the
: most powerful means of strengthening the perceptual component without
: which productive thinking is impossible in every field of academic study
: .... What is most needed is not more aesthetics or more esoteric manuals
: of art education but a convincing case made for visual thinking quite in
: general. Once we understand in theory, we might try to heal in practise
: the unwholesome split which cripples the training of reasoning power.*
I find it hard to believe that someone would assume that perception
doesn't involve thought. Almost everybody needs to increase their
sensory skills including vision, taste, smell, hearing, and touch.
What split are you referencing and how is it crippling the training
of reasoning power?
Are there any publications or web sites that show arts strengthen
are perceptual senses and thereby increase our ability to reason?
I think that the problem with art as a field of study is its
isolation from from other fields of study. Art has come to mean
human expression that is devoid of intellectual content or usefulness.
I think this has occurred because of the elite nature of the
art business where so-called experts try to ascribe fantastic
values to the work of dead artists.
Ron
Mark Wright
: I find it hard to believe that someone would assume that perception
: doesn't involve thought. Almost everybody needs to increase their
: sensory skills including vision, taste, smell, hearing, and touch.
:
: What split are you referencing and how is it crippling the training
: of reasoning power?
:
: Are there any publications or web sites that show arts strengthen
: are perceptual senses and thereby increase our ability to reason?
:
: I think that the problem with art as a field of study is its
: isolation from from other fields of study. Art has come to mean
: human expression that is devoid of intellectual content or usefulness.
: I think this has occurred because of the elite nature of the
: art business where so-called experts try to ascribe fantastic
: values to the work of dead artists.
I totally agree with the last statement there. It seems that it is the
turning of art into business by powerful and manipulative people which has
derailed the concept and the meaning, just as science is perverted by
business in the search for money. I recently caused a storm at coffee
time (when else!) by interjecting into a debate on the nature of art that
'I dont believe in art!' The reply was ridicule of course but then
quietness as I laid out my argument as follows:
The concept that 'art' is a status that a piece of work can attain is
perverse; that there are people who decide what 'is' and what 'isnt' is
just a fabrication of modern social trend. It is not for society to
decide what is art and what isnt, anything can be art; and since anything
can be it, there is little point in having the concept. The counter
argument at that point was that I was effectively saying that since
there is no clear line between X and Y, then X and Y cannot be
distinguished; but that does not mean that they arent distinct, and
certainly not that they dont exist! But I went on: Consider the sun, a
hill, a tree. These arent art, but if they were captured together in a
photo they might well be. People would say that the art was in the
photography and the choice of setting etc. But now consider that I take
someone to a spot where they see the sun, through a tree on a hill... A
moving experience, but is it art? Most would say that a view cant be art
- the artist didnt create any part of it - its always been there; but
some performance artists might say that
the timing of the view, getting the sun behind the tree at the right time
of the day, choosing the windiness of the day, the light level, the
season etc. contained the creativity of the artist, and therefore it *is*
art. But then I argued that what if I found a spot like that by myself,
and was simmilarly moved as when I saw the view as shown by the artist...
I would be viewing the same art - but whose? So I concluded: It is not
the vision (sound/whatever) under scrutiny whch contains the art, but the
*reaction* of the viewer (listener/whatever since music is art and much
else too). The viewer, by being moved in some way, conveys the status of
'art' onto what he is viewing. Art, quite simply, is anything that moves
us, inspires a feeling in our minds, causes us to react in *any* way
(since we have seen that art is not just about pleasing us, but also
about disgusting us). The definition of 'Good Art' then becomes easy: the
higher the percentage of people that will be moved by a vision, then the
more art that has been created by that vision, then the 'better' the art
content. Of course that makes it easy to make brillian art just by
showing something shocking, like a dead body, but that is just because we
live in a society where a) Most people never see a dead body, and the
unfamillar always shocks us, b) People have tradionally tried to create
'positive-vibe' art rather than 'negetive-vibe' art, when in reality both
are equally valid, and to cause revulsion is traditionally a 'bad' thing!
Perhaps this explains our present propensity for violent films: to
restore the balance of centuries of censorship! From this I suggest that
*anything* can be art - as long as it moves 1 single person, then for
that person, it is art. I believe that the microchip is art, because it
moves me. Every one, when I see their tiny size, their glistening coppery
tracks, their symmetry, their complexity, their power, what they have
done for humanity, every single one moves me. Every single one is art to
me, mass produced on a fabrication line - perhaps humanity's finest
achievement to date? Perhaps humanity's greatest art to date? I firmly
believe science *is* art, because it moves me, every time I think about it!
I dont expect I'm the first person to say things like this, what is the
general reation to these ideas?
Mark
jimmy adams
<ali...@address.in.signature> writes
And welcome back, Alison, we've missed you.
>It would be nice if we could pull this thread back to the original
>inquiry - where the original poster in alt.philosophy stated that
>artistic expression and philosophical viewpoint expression don't seem to
>work alongside each other.
On the face of it, philosophical expression should be rational, and will
normally be verbal. Artistic expression doesn't have to be either. But I
suspect that there may be more to it than this?
> In relation to the threads on the sublime
>that are flooding rec.arts.fine it has certainly opened up the
>discussion. I know Erik will have something to say on the matter .......
>if he stops leaking all over his monitor.......
>
>Rudolf Arnheim in _Visual Thinking_ (1969) wrote that *... the arts are
>neglected because they are based on perception, and perception is
>disdained because it is not assumed to involve thought. In fact
>educators and administrators cannot justify giving the arts an important
>position in the curriculum unless they understand that the arts are the
>most powerful means of strengthening the perceptual component without
>which productive thinking is impossible in every field of academic study
The two premises are: educators think that perception does not involve
thought; productive thinking is impossible without a strong perceptual
component. There is also the suggestion that it is educators and
administrators who are neglecting the arts.
Starting at the back, it is not clear from the quotation whether it is
believed that *only* the education profession which is neglecting the
arts, or whether they are just an important element. Indeed, I am not
sure whether a case has been made that the arts *are* being neglected at
all. In the sense that there is tremendous pressure on teachers to keep
up with the Japanese in maths, the Germans in English, the French in
science etc, there probably isn't much time left over for art.
On the other hand, in the UK there are huge amounts of money going into
a wide variety of artistic endeavours, both from the Lottery and from
commercial sponsorship.
The proposition that perception does not require thought implies a
limited view of the latter. It is well known that the *recognition* of a
perceived object involves considerable mental activity, and this is what
normally happens. We do not "perceive a face"; we perceive our partner,
our boss, or a stranger.
The idea that one's thoughts will not be very productive without well
developed perceptual skills seems on firmer ground. Certainly
innovations seldom come from people seeing something for the first time;
generally they come from someone seeing something *in that way* for the
first time. Many people saw many apples fall from many trees before
Newton was moved to think of gravity.
I could make a case that the study of art might help to develop this
kind of skill, but I'm not sure how many administrators of educational
funds would accept the argument!
>.... What is most needed is not more aesthetics or more esoteric manuals
>of art education but a convincing case made for visual thinking quite in
>general. Once we understand in theory, we might try to heal in practise
>the unwholesome split which cripples the training of reasoning power.*
>
I would prefer to attack the unwholesome split between maths, languages,
science useful, arts useless. This means attacking the idea that
education is for getting you a living, rather than living a life.
But it's a hard fight in today's world.
Cheers,
--
jimmy adams
mdeli
wrote:
>
>----------
mdeli wrote:
>>The System-How brand name artists are created.
>>You won't learn about this in art school.
>>
>Mattison Fitzgerald wrote:
>That is for SURE!!!!!
>
>Business of art is "You Starve".
>
>Ha!!!!
I never came close.
>>Among the major things critics, museum curators and top of the line
>>gallery owners must do in order to maintain the high prices of brand
>>name Bluechip Modern Artists are:
>
>Like you know Mani - You are too negative to find out the real truth of
>create your own reality.
Iv'e been around booby and I report the results of my experiences
whether or not its negative. I presume you walk around with a
perpetually positive shit-eating -grin.
>>
>>-make sure that their artists doesn't lower prices by flooding the
>>market. (any Bluechip minimalist can usually knock out works at a
>>furious rate and might have a strong desire to do this. )
>>
>Not the case good work takes years to make and move into the market. That
>is if you are going for a major American Market.
Snipped the rest of the "not the case statements
>>-make sure that imitators are denigrated and ignored. (That's why
>>Mondrian imitators are banned.)
>
>Not the case at all. There is no time in the business of art market to deal
>with that sort of negative business planning.
>
Name 5 Mondrian imitators who make big money.
>> -make sure that all aesthetic competition is carefully kept out of
>>sight (that's why you rarely see paintings by illustrators like Norman
>>Rockwell and the finest realism and surrealism in art museums The holy
>>sites which house Modern Academic Art must be kept pure)
>
>>What is kept off the market is as important as what goes on the market
>
>Can be true in some cases but most deliberate attempts to keep anything on
>or off market are not nearly where you seem to put importance Mani. I know
>some of the top people in this business and what they do every day - yes _
>with the big boys and your description is not it.
I doubt that the big boys tell you anything
>
>>
>>
>>Did you ever wonder how all that incompetent minimal
>>practically-nothing-artwork and no-skill-realism gets into the modern
>>art sections of museums and those richy collections? Or, why artworks
>>which look worthy of little more than a passing glance attained that
>>astronomical price range you read about?
>
>Timing and hard work simple as that - trust me I am in the midst of it all.
Your not.
>>Here are some of the reasons why brand-name creators of Blue Chip
>>Modern Art get all that attention while thousands of others who create
>>much the same thing rarely sell anything?
>
>I doubt your research is very founded but I will read.
>
>>
>>The brand name modern artist is not really the result of any public
>>consensus.
>
>Wrong.
I presume that you believe that most people like abstract
expressionists.
>
>He is more often then not the creation of art dealers,
>
>You don't get the dealers without the public...simple as that.
>They are less likely to risk anything than a critic!
The public is not a few richies.
>
>Public at the start important after you enter the dealers ring - dealer
>takes over and thank god you have nearly swum round the ocean.
?
>
>>critics, and museum curators working together much like stock market
>>insiders. Raising art market prices often requires little more than
>
>No they are not ~ they barely know their own staffs they are so over worked.
Bullshit
>>quite agreements among small groups representing these professions who
>>own and speculate in modern art and profit from it.
>
>No such thing...there is true deep respect for the risktakers and the
>business of art on those levels. Trust me I am getting to them now.
You are naive
>
>It is not like your negative vision Mani. If you only knew how easy people
>recognize hard work and comitment to the arts you would get out form behind
>the computer and do it.
Hard work for most modern Bullshit artists is PR parties and getting
connections. If they succeed at this they usually get very lazy.
>>
>>Essentially all it takes is few insiders getting together each agreeing
>>to do his part in order to push a particular artist. The museum
>
>Support from the art community comes from the aritsts. Like it or not your
>art peers know hard work and the ones who are really working and succeeding
>and they support it often. That is where most critics I have seen hear
>besides their own eyes.
So what.
>Mani this is art not politics...thank god for that....FREEDOM!!!!!!
Got nothing against freedom.
>
>No one is buying critics....NO WAY!
Critics are a part of the business and the big boys speculate.
>
>All the cirtics I know are very independent even more so than artists and
>even more opinionated on the art!!!!
>
>Heaven help you Mani if you think that the critics are bought.
You telling me what to think?
>
>No way.
>
>Artists tend to stay away fromthe bought critics but if you are emerging
>just to get your work into a art magazine even if it is paid can help as you
>will have tear sheets and there is a place for them.
You seem to be contradicting yourself.
>I have had the luck not ot have taken that route but I have seen other
>artists use it to theri advantage.
>
>>curator agrees to exhibit or purchase while the critic agrees to do
>>his bit of complimenting and the dealer agrees to show and publicize.
>
>No one works like that Mani. At least not that I have seen in NYC or Santa
>Fe or even San Jose or San Francisco.
I presume you know all that is happening in these large cities.
>>This allows all for all kinds of deals. It can involve pooling money
>>in order to invest in an artist they plan to push or marketing what
>>they already own.
>
>Wrong again, it takes years of commitment to the arts before most blue chip
>and most darn it deserve it after long hard years of work and smart art and
>smart business. Nothing wrong with that....nothing at all. They know what
>their careers cost! More power to that and if more artist did that you
>would all be better off and so would the world economy.
>
My point is that Blue chippers are like lottery winners. They can't
produce any better work than all the losers.
>>Anyone interested has often read newspaper articles about the sale of
>>some now famous modern work that fetched some millions in auction.
>
>Supply and demand Mani - simple.
True, but this doesn't say anything bout my points.
>
>>These articles usually mention the price, the artist, and the auction
>>house very prominently in the headline. They also describe the
>>sensational bidding by buyers and mention former prices in comparison
>>with the latest. However they rarely mention auction pooling, shill
>>bids, auction house extended credit and fake sales.
>
>Rare Mani...very rare.
Not often detected but if you read the Times over the years you will
find evidence of collusion.
>
>>
>>One of the best price indicators for Modern Art is revealed` at those
>>highly publicized Bluechip Modern auctions. Before an important
>>auction those who own works by a particular artist will contact one
>>another and form a biding pools. These can be large or small. The pool
>>members will agree to bid up the auction price of a particular work to
>>a certain high value. The obvious intention here is to raise the
>
>I would like to see proof of these Mani, I have never seen this but I may
>not be to that level quite yet. I will let you know the day I see it
>though.
>
>
>>selling price of their inventory. If their bidding is successful each
>>pays an agreed percentage of the bid price. Should someone other than
>>the dealer surpass the pool bid price so much the better for the
>>dealers who have inventory. The higher the final bid price for an
>>artwork the better for all those who hold that artists work.
>
>And better for the artist.
True but its totally phoney like the most of the artwork in question.
> If this is going on good! Art world needs more
>respect.
Its not getting respect because it full of crap.
>Business is business and we all know art is in short supply on the planet in
>the face of malls and mall art reproductions. But I am all for people
>loving art in any for and if job public likes a Miro or whatever on paper it
>is better than a line painting manufactured artwork from mexico. If they
>have taken the time to learn about art and have a poster and an interest the
>GREAT!!!!! At least they are a part of something greater on the planet =
>ART.
>
Sure, "business is business."
>>I'm sure any intelligent reader can figure out other variations. The
>>point here is that the exhibition, the praise and the prices for brand
>>name Blue Chip artwork is to a very high degree controlled by insiders
>
>This is way way later in a career if at all and I highly doubt ther eis much
>of this going on in America as I have seen behind some of the biggest most
>respected peopel in the gallery business in America and many are just
>regular people like you mani who love art!!!!!!
Whether or not they love art many are a bunch of crooks.
>
>>with the right connections. The actual works of these artists rarely
>>represent any consensus public taste as the public is only allowed to
>>hear about and see certain works in those places which are acclaimed
>>to exhibit great art
>
>Mani - most dealers will not go near you without your proper documentation
>of your career!!!!
Doesn't answer my point
>That all comes from hard work and public recognition. It starts in tiny
>cafes, art centers, resturants, billiard halls, college galleries
And usually ends there, with good reason.
>...and builds
>from there. Not until you have a record do you even start to get
>anywhere...you have to have the documentation.
I see, its documentation that counts.
>What I have observed in the artworld is that most artists don't take time to
>do ALL THE WORK it takes to build a career.
>
Most so called artists have no skill and have to spend all their time
building a carrer. Very few even manage that.
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Check out my web page, A Skeptical View of Modern Art and
mdeli
wrote:
>Mani if you were really smart, you would promote the living hell out of the
>RAF crowd - the good ones at least. Follow your own theories outlined with
>the RAF artists.... if you are so sure of the busines and that formula of
>yours!!!!! I am game if you do....totally worth a business risk....what do
>you all say....lets let Mani make the RAF crowd into the next blue
>chippers...
Most so called artists here are totally incompetent losers. I don't
bet on losers. The few winners here, whose work is run-of the-mill
fashionable crap earn a good living. They don't need any help, nor do
I.
>.bet most of you would not complain to be there now would
>you?????? B U T are you relaly willing to do ALL the work it takes???? I
>highly doubt it. It is easier for you all to pose round like what you think
>artists are and make up excuses for NOT doing it than doing it. I will be
>the first to cheer you all on and hope to be in the crowd when you all
>respect yourselves and your art enough to get in there and really make it.
>That counts you in too Haber heaven knows this net art needs serious
>critical shreading...everyone with a brush and mouse thinks they are an
>artist. Not quite!!!!!!...just because I throw a football does not make me
>a football player.
>
I don't spend time worrying whether or not I'm an artist, my work is
any god or its art. I ain't religious.
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Check out my web page, A Skeptical View of Modern Art and
Erik A. Mattila
'other' i.e. not plhilosophy but what's being proposed as an alternative,
what artists may do whilst transfixed in creative expression. One thing
about the unonscious content of an individual is that it is irrational and
probably 'unknowable.' However, accounts of this content are always
rational, since knowability involves translating unconscious content into a
symbolic form. The grand example of this process is the myth itself. It
should always be regarded as a translation, I think.
The rationalism of philosophy may stand in opposition to the esoteria of the
unconscious mind, but it certainly does not oppose our symbolic forms, which
are quite rational in themselves. The equanamity I see between art and
philosophy is that both can become interpretations (or representations) of
our unknowable inner lives.
What I've just said seems reasonable to me. But I'm trying to imagine
others who may have trouble with the concept that the unconscious is
unknowable. Jung himself understood this,and subsequently made a life's
work of the investigation of alchemy because it was an organized, consistent
and transferable body of knowledge which was ultimately keyed to unraveling
the mysteries of our minds. If you read the Bollingen series ( mysterium
conuinctionis, Aion, psychology of the transference, etc.) the one thing
that rings clear is that the alchemist gained knowledge through ritual
practice -- i.e. engaging in a redundant, repetitive act for horribly long
periods of time, just to produce that state of mind which is 'open.' The
metaphor was 'turning lead into gold.' This is applicable, by the way, to
our previous discussion of the value of 'rote' activity. But the point here
is that Western Philosophy owes much to it's ancestor, Alchemy, as does
Western Art.
Alison A Raimes wrote:
> It would be nice if we could pull this thread back to the original
> inquiry - where the original poster in alt.philosophy stated that
> artistic expression and philosophical viewpoint expression don't seem to
> work alongside each other. In relation to the threads on the sublime
> that are flooding rec.arts.fine it has certainly opened up the
> discussion. I know Erik will have something to say on the matter .......
> if he stops leaking all over his monitor.......
When I read the original post I was responding when my monitor went south.
I think we need to discuss how philosophy works in culture. Years ago I was
very keen on General Semantics, and set out to read Alfred Korzybski's
"Science and Sanity" religiously. One thing about Korzybski was that he
held philosophers accountable for many of the ills of the modern world, but
not from the standpoint of Jungian psychology, rather from the standpoint of
'science circa 1933.' I think I accepted his diatribe quite well, and my
own attitude about philosophy and philosophers was that it was way out in
right field and had no real relevance or effect on our daily lives. At some
point, however, I began to see how my view was distorted. I read F.S.C.
Northrup's "Meeting of East and West," for example, and this author did a
grand job of demonstrating how philosophy seeps down into our daily lives,
largely with his account of the influence of John Locke on American life.
It all boils down to how ideas circulate in culture, of course. One might
find oneself behaving as an exemplary Descartian without knowing it. Who
knows, a bar room brawl may in fact be the contest between the Knights of
Aristtotle (KOA) and the Popular Foucauldian Front (PFF) without the
participants being aware of their ideological lineage. What happens is that
on the level of popular culture the ideas themselves become 'naturalized'
and accepted as 'human nature' and it is very difficult to create any
critical distance between ideology and individualism. With that in mind, is
it a bizzare idea that many artists are in fact expressing philosophy when
they believe they are expressing the 'inner self?'
> Rudolf Arnheim in _Visual Thinking_ (1969) wrote that *... the arts are
> neglected because they are based on perception, and perception is
> disdained because it is not assumed to involve thought. In fact
> educators and administrators cannot justify giving the arts an important
> position in the curriculum unless they understand that the arts are the
> most powerful means of strengthening the perceptual component without
> which productive thinking is impossible in every field of academic study
> ..... What is most needed is not more aesthetics or more esoteric manuals
> of art education but a convincing case made for visual thinking quite in
> general. Once we understand in theory, we might try to heal in practise
> the unwholesome split which cripples the training of reasoning power.*
Arnheim is alway good, in my opinion. But here I am, a hack artist who
regularly works for scientists on a daily basis. What I find is that
scientists are very dependant on visual metaphors. I've never seen a race
who were so addicted to charts and graphs, and other visual expressions of
data. But there is a lot of sense in what Arnheim is saying. I wonder what
the difference is between a bar chart that looks great, from an aesthetic
point of view, to one that is functional but not too attractive. I would
like to argue, of course, that the good looking chart would do it's job
better, but I really have no basis to say this other than my own bias (and
the hope that employment will continue making the ugly beautiful). But it
is a possibility that the aesthetically pleasing visual presentation would
be more effective, even it it operates on a subliminal level in the reader.
Anyway, I get feedback all the time from scientists: "Oh, that's looks so
much better." They are pleased, but is it because the graph, chart or
visual model works better, or merely looks better?
At any rate, this point you've raised is difficult to tie back to the
philosophy vs.art topic. I would say this. The visual expression of
scientific data does one important thing, and that is to show relationships
between data sets which are otherwise difficult to see. Many scientists
have a remarkable ability to 'see' numbers, but one truism about the daily
life of the scientist is that she/he must communicate scientific insights to
administrators and politicians frequently, and the visual metaphor is very
useful in this. The question here is where does the idea of an
epistomological value for demonstrating the relationships between data sets
with visual metaphors come from, if not philosophy?
Erik
Ron Peterson
: "Confliction" is there such a word?
Digital Webster on my computer says there is such a word.
Ron
Alison A Raimes
<ji...@jradams.demon.co.uk> writes
>And welcome back, Alison, we've missed you.
Actually, I'm not in your room Jimmy, I'm over on rec.arts.fine ! Now
don't you go making me feel wanted, I just got used to the hostility of
this volatile group here, I couldn't possibly come back amongst *nice*
people ! Anyway, I missed you too, my friend so its good to be able to
visit on occasion. Humanism does have me baffled, which is why I left -
but I was always fascinated by it's ideas on the role of art, hence the
cross posting. I know they hardly ever talk about philosophy on the
other philosophy groups, but maybe, just maybe, someone interested in
the philosophy of aesthetics can be dragged in !
>
>On the face of it, philosophical expression should be rational, and will
>normally be verbal. Artistic expression doesn't have to be either. But I
>suspect that there may be more to it than this?
The original thread started in alt.philosophy by someone who wasn't
really interested in the thread title that he gave it, but more in the
idea that there is no *thinking* ... he called it *deep thought*,
involved in art. It turned into an *artists are woolly thinkers* thread
instead ! Your suspicions are correct ..... there is more to it than
that.
Erik said that the thing about the unconscious content of an individual
is that it is irrational and probably 'unknowable', but that accounts of
this content are always rational, since *knowability* involves
translating unconscious content into symbolic form. Its plain naive of
anyone to think that there can be art without thought. The problem comes
with the translation - the language of art is often ambiguous and often
specialised - it requires a certain symbolic knowledge to understand the
motives of the artist. The real problem comes because the boundaries of
what is philosophical thought are as wide as the boundaries of what art
is. Everyone can be a philosopher and everyone can be an artist - as
Mark just showed us.
>The two premises are: educators think that perception does not involve
>thought; productive thinking is impossible without a strong perceptual
>component. There is also the suggestion that it is educators and
>administrators who are neglecting the arts.
>
>Starting at the back, it is not clear from the quotation whether it is
>believed that *only* the education profession which is neglecting the
>arts, or whether they are just an important element. Indeed, I am not
>sure whether a case has been made that the arts *are* being neglected at
>all. In the sense that there is tremendous pressure on teachers to keep
>up with the Japanese in maths, the Germans in English, the French in
>science etc, there probably isn't much time left over for art.
I am not convinced that Arnheim is right in using the word *perception*
in the context he did, it seems to have confused the issue even more. I
believe he should have restricted his observations to *visual* language.
Let's not ignore the historical context of the passage - the late 1960's
when arts funding had not developed to what it is today. The problem I
see, is that artists have been forced to justify that art requires
*thought* and in so doing have attempted to create an intellectual
response through their work that previously did not exist.
As Ron quite rightly pointed out, almost everybody needs to increase
their sensory skills including vision, taste, smell, hearing, and touch.
I think that Arnheim was trying to say that our visual perceptions need
to be nurtured and developed in the same way that our intellect does,
and that requires education. The reason this thread started was because,
as Ron said,
>Art has come to mean
>human expression that is devoid of intellectual content or usefulness.
I doubt there is a single artist who could seriously agree with this,
and yet all artists know this is how it has come to be seen in the wider
field we call *society* - hence the origination of this thread by
someone on alt.philosophy. The reluctance of artists to speak on this
and the domination of the art world by critics and as a *market*
prevents it being anything other.
The word elitism is a difficult one. It's one of those *anti* words, and
yet every specialised field of training is elitist. Most sports, for
instance, require a certain degree of specialised knowledge and focused
commitment to make a spectator sport more than something everyone is
capable of participating in, yet they do not receive the same negative
acceptance in society. Do spectator sports have a *use* ?
>On the other hand, in the UK there are huge amounts of money going into
>a wide variety of artistic endeavours, both from the Lottery and from
>commercial sponsorship.
Don't I know ! Just been writing on rec.arts.fine about the funding that
Cable Street Arts Group are chasing to try and prevent the property
developers taking over. The East End of London is swamped by them now,
its becoming a maze of yuppy apartments juxtaposed with the council
tower block estates - did you get to see any the East End when you went
to Eltham Palace ?
>
>The proposition that perception does not require thought implies a
>limited view of the latter. It is well known that the *recognition* of a
>perceived object involves considerable mental activity, and this is what
>normally happens. We do not "perceive a face"; we perceive our partner,
>our boss, or a stranger.
>
>The idea that one's thoughts will not be very productive without well
>developed perceptual skills seems on firmer ground. Certainly
>innovations seldom come from people seeing something for the first time;
>generally they come from someone seeing something *in that way* for the
>first time. Many people saw many apples fall from many trees before
>Newton was moved to think of gravity.
Absolutely. Artists are trained to *see* in a particular way - they
become so intrigued by the use of space; light; and colour in the same
way that mathematicians are intrigued by the use of formulas and chefs
are fascinated by combinations of tastes and textures. None of them
could *innovate* without having first had their training.
>
>I could make a case that the study of art might help to develop this
>kind of skill, but I'm not sure how many administrators of educational
>funds would accept the argument!
I challenge you !
>I would prefer to attack the unwholesome split between maths, languages,
>science useful, arts useless. This means attacking the idea that
>education is for getting you a living, rather than living a life.
>
An ongoing one.
>But it's a hard fight in today's world.
>
Getting a living is as hard as living a life !
Take good care.
Alison A Raimes
<ro...@earth.execpc.com> writes
dictionary ? and I've always been so in awe of her literacy.
--
Alison A Raimes
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Alison A Raimes
<ro...@earth.execpc.com> writes
>
>What split are you referencing and how is it crippling the training
>of reasoning power?
Good questions, Ron. Wasn't Arnheim saying that the arts are necessary
as perceptual stimulation which enhances productive thinking ? I
understood him to be suggesting that if we could relate this as a
*reason* for its necessity in education in relation to its importance in
the education system. Since he wrote this, I do believe there have been
considerable changes in attitudes to the arts.
>
>Are there any publications or web sites that show arts strengthen
>are perceptual senses and thereby increase our ability to reason?
Maybe Erik knows of some ? I know there have been many studies into the
possibilities.
>
>I think that the problem with art as a field of study is its
>isolation from from other fields of study. Art has come to mean
>human expression that is devoid of intellectual content or usefulness.
>I think this has occurred because of the elite nature of the
>art business where so-called experts try to ascribe fantastic
>values to the work of dead artists.
>
It has always been so, of course, but I understand what you are
directing us towards. This century has become know as the century of
criticism in the arts. Susan Sontag describes it as the revenge of the
intellects ! It has also become a century that relates success and value
in monetary terms. Many artists feel it is time to re-establish
sensibility in the arts. A difficult task while we are controlled by the
power of the dollar - yes ?
Best regards.
Marilyn Welch
writes about what I understood to be one of your points on the link
between the currents of philosophy and our inner selves.
"...we will see that the process of living always grows -out of-
or -is based on- certain assumptions; these are like the soil on which we
stand, or which we use as a point of departure.
And this is true in every field, in science as in politics, in morals, in
art. Every idea is thought, every picture painted, out of a certain set
of assumptions or conventions which are so basic, so firmly fixed for
the one who thought the idea or who painted the picture that he neither
pays heed to them, nor for that matter, introduces them into his picture
or his idea; nor do we find them there in any guise except as pre-supposed
and left, as it were, at one side. This is why we sometimes fail to
understand an idea or a picture; we lack the clue to the enigma, the key
to the secret convention.
...each generation takes as its point of departure a set of assumptions
which are more or less different from those that went before or will come
after, this means that the prevailing system of truths and values -
esthetic, moral, political, or religious- has an inexorable dimension in
terms of history; these are related to a certain vital human chhronology,
they have value for certain men, and nothing more. Truth is historical.
How truth can, and indeed must, claim nevertheless to be super-historical
- not relative but absolute - is the great question. Many of you know that
for me, the resolving of this question within the realm of the possible is
the theme of our time."
Jose Ortega y Gasset
"The Theme of Our Times" 1960
Like it or not we are part of our times. If you accept the theory of the
collective unconscious, it's possible to say that this set of assumptions
is innate.
As for the unknowable unconscious, it is accessible also through our
dreams and Jung advises us to read our dreams in order to really know
ourselves and reach individuation.
Personally as I get right into my creative process, my recent dreams come
to mind. From this experience I believe that the creative state is similar
to the dream state.
Since our historical context imprints its set of
assumptions on our unconscious (or inner self)and we are in touch with
that part of ourselves during the creative process, then our art is based
on the philosophical currents of our times.
and then maybe not...
Marilyn
John Haber
"affliction," two subjects on which one complaining about grammar in
raf should be expert. :)
John Haber
philosophy and art. Can philosophy not encompass a work of art or
explain what art is? Well, no, but then neither art nor science can
encompass and explain away the world, yet we depend on them. What we
all hope to do in our different ways is only to add what insight we
can, and sometimes the people who try -- philosophers, writers,
artists, scientists -- can take your breath away doing it.
Erik and Alison have already added a lot of terrific insight here,
especially into how one should beware of assuming some purity of
experience or art on which understanding intrudes. One could also go
about it the other way, with the image of philosophy as
hyper-rational. Logical positivism hasn't been in fashion in my
parents' lifetime, much less mine. There's the danger of forcing it
into a double-bind, too. As soon as it gets less logical, more like
post-Structuralism, the Mani types who despise it in favor of the
naturalness of art and experience then denounce it as windy. No fair.
Perhaps it's less important for philosophy to respond to the charge
than to analyze it. What's it a symptom of? Just as it's been argued
that many fields of culture, philosophy, and modern art arose because
the individual feels diminished in a corporate, media-driven world,
perhaps the sense of loss for artists is what should be considered.
What is it, and what brought it on? It may not turn out to be
esthetics.
jimmy adams
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
> One thing
>about the unonscious content of an individual is that it is irrational and
>probably 'unknowable.' However, accounts of this content are always
>rational, since knowability involves translating unconscious content into a
>symbolic form. The grand example of this process is the myth itself. It
>should always be regarded as a translation, I think.
Since most originated in "dead" languages, this is not a problem. But I
am surprised by the implication that a myth cannot be consciously
created. Isn't this a major task for PR companies?
>
(snip)
>the alchemist gained knowledge through ritual
>practice -- i.e. engaging in a redundant, repetitive act for horribly long
>periods of time, just to produce that state of mind which is 'open.' The
>metaphor was 'turning lead into gold.' This is applicable, by the way, to
>our previous discussion of the value of 'rote' activity. But the point here
>is that Western Philosophy owes much to it's ancestor, Alchemy, as does
>Western Art.
I am deeply suspicious of the "open" mind in this sense: I believe
"empty" would be a better description, and would, in fact, be accepted
by many advocates of Eastern ways of thought. The last time we discussed
this I agreed with a poster that lying in the bath, not thinking about
anything in particular, could be very productive. But this is a far cry
from saying mantras, breathing so as to restrict the oxygen flow to your
brain, or
> engaging in a redundant, repetitive act for horribly long
>periods of time
In any case, what did the alchemists produce which was useful?
(snip)
>Arnheim is alway good, in my opinion. But here I am, a hack artist who
>regularly works for scientists on a daily basis. What I find is that
>scientists are very dependant on visual metaphors. I've never seen a race
>who were so addicted to charts and graphs, and other visual expressions of
>data.
Scientists have to communicate to live. (And artists don't? curiously
enough, I think the answer is "no". Howls from the artists!)
Very few people can see from a table of data what is obvious from a
chart. They are first class tools of communication.
> But there is a lot of sense in what Arnheim is saying. I wonder what
>the difference is between a bar chart that looks great, from an aesthetic
>point of view, to one that is functional but not too attractive. I would
>like to argue, of course, that the good looking chart would do it's job
>better, but I really have no basis to say this other than my own bias (and
>the hope that employment will continue making the ugly beautiful). But it
>is a possibility that the aesthetically pleasing visual presentation would
>be more effective, even it it operates on a subliminal level in the reader.
>Anyway, I get feedback all the time from scientists: "Oh, that's looks so
>much better." They are pleased, but is it because the graph, chart or
>visual model works better, or merely looks better?
I would be very surprised in the two were not related. To get a message
from a chart you need to look at it, and we are more likely to look at
attractive things than unattractive things. The validity of the
proposition could easily be tested: you might suggest it to one of your
clients as a nice research project. Call it the Adams-Mattila-Raimes
effect (ARME).
Cheers,
--
jimmy adams
Ron Peterson
: directing us towards. This century has become know as the century of
: criticism in the arts. Susan Sontag describes it as the revenge of the
: intellects ! It has also become a century that relates success and value
: in monetary terms. Many artists feel it is time to re-establish
: sensibility in the arts. A difficult task while we are controlled by the
: power of the dollar - yes ?
Money might be a satisfactory means of evaluating art since it is
used for everyone else's labor. Artists need to bypass the experts
and sell directly to their clients. This will probably mean that
the fine arts artists will have to evaluate the needs of their
clientele and create art to match those needs.
Although I don't watch spectator sports very much, I can see
why people spend much more time being a spectator than looking
at a painting.
Ron
Erik A. Mattila
'art' and 'academics' that exists in the minds of educational
administrators. Just look at the 'natural history' of art as it is posited
in modern life in western culture. Most are first introduced to art making
at an early age as a recreational activity in the school system. Sorry to
make generalizations - this is true in the US but as for the UK and other
nations I only suspect it is similiar. So the first grade student is always
relieved when 'art hour' rolls around -- an hour of fun compared to the
three "Rs." I think this stygma continues into adulthood. So when a young
adult sets off for college and tells mom and dad that she/he will be
studying art, well, you know the story.
Following Arnheim's comments, then, what would happen if 'art hour' in early
academic life were treated as an academic subject rather than as recreation?
Erik Mattila
jimmy adams wrote:
> In article <doaJwCAZ...@raimes.demon.co.uk>, Alison A Raimes
> <ali...@address.in.signature> writes
>
> And welcome back, Alison, we've missed you.
>
> >It would be nice if we could pull this thread back to the original
> >inquiry - where the original poster in alt.philosophy stated that
> >artistic expression and philosophical viewpoint expression don't seem to
> >work alongside each other.
>
> On the face of it, philosophical expression should be rational, and will
> normally be verbal. Artistic expression doesn't have to be either. But I
> suspect that there may be more to it than this?
>
> > In relation to the threads on the sublime
> >that are flooding rec.arts.fine it has certainly opened up the
> >discussion. I know Erik will have something to say on the matter .......
> >if he stops leaking all over his monitor.......
> >
> >Rudolf Arnheim in _Visual Thinking_ (1969) wrote that *... the arts are
> >neglected because they are based on perception, and perception is
> >disdained because it is not assumed to involve thought. In fact
> >educators and administrators cannot justify giving the arts an important
> >position in the curriculum unless they understand that the arts are the
> >most powerful means of strengthening the perceptual component without
> >which productive thinking is impossible in every field of academic study
>
> The two premises are: educators think that perception does not involve
> thought; productive thinking is impossible without a strong perceptual
> component. There is also the suggestion that it is educators and
> administrators who are neglecting the arts.
>
> Starting at the back, it is not clear from the quotation whether it is
> believed that *only* the education profession which is neglecting the
> arts, or whether they are just an important element. Indeed, I am not
> sure whether a case has been made that the arts *are* being neglected at
> all. In the sense that there is tremendous pressure on teachers to keep
> up with the Japanese in maths, the Germans in English, the French in
> science etc, there probably isn't much time left over for art.
>
> On the other hand, in the UK there are huge amounts of money going into
> a wide variety of artistic endeavours, both from the Lottery and from
> commercial sponsorship.
>
> The proposition that perception does not require thought implies a
> limited view of the latter. It is well known that the *recognition* of a
> perceived object involves considerable mental activity, and this is what
> normally happens. We do not "perceive a face"; we perceive our partner,
> our boss, or a stranger.
>
> The idea that one's thoughts will not be very productive without well
> developed perceptual skills seems on firmer ground. Certainly
> innovations seldom come from people seeing something for the first time;
> generally they come from someone seeing something *in that way* for the
> first time. Many people saw many apples fall from many trees before
> Newton was moved to think of gravity.
>
> I could make a case that the study of art might help to develop this
> kind of skill, but I'm not sure how many administrators of educational
> funds would accept the argument!
>
> >.... What is most needed is not more aesthetics or more esoteric manuals
> >of art education but a convincing case made for visual thinking quite in
> >general. Once we understand in theory, we might try to heal in practise
> >the unwholesome split which cripples the training of reasoning power.*
> >
> I would prefer to attack the unwholesome split between maths, languages,
> science useful, arts useless. This means attacking the idea that
> education is for getting you a living, rather than living a life.
>
> But it's a hard fight in today's world.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> jimmy adams
Chris
"Erik A. Mattila" wrote:
>
[...]
>
> Following Arnheim's comments, then, what would happen if 'art hour' in early
> academic life were treated as an academic subject rather than as recreation?
>
Alas, I imagine they'd turn kids off to art just as quickly as they did
at one time in science!
FWIW - My own son in 4th grade, and here there's much more emphasis on
the hands on, recreational approach to studies than in my day (with lots
of rote work, drills, and piles of homework). Frankly, it's a big
improvement.
Cheers;
Chris
Alison A Raimes
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>I suspect there's another issue at hand in relation to any schism between
>'art' and 'academics' that exists in the minds of educational
>administrators. Just look at the 'natural history' of art as it is posited
>in modern life in western culture. Most are first introduced to art making
>at an early age as a recreational activity in the school system. Sorry to
>make generalizations - this is true in the US but as for the UK and other
>nations I only suspect it is similiar. So the first grade student is always
>relieved when 'art hour' rolls around -- an hour of fun compared to the
>three "Rs." I think this stygma continues into adulthood. So when a young
>adult sets off for college and tells mom and dad that she/he will be
>studying art, well, you know the story.
>
>academic life were treated as an academic subject rather than as recreation?
>
But they also are introduced to sports at the same time and many go on
to win scholarships (in the US) for entry in University based on their
sporting achievements. How do you account for this split ?
When I first got a place at art school in the late 1970's, I was 16. My
father refused to finance me and made me go back to High School and
finish what we call *A* levels ... usually three subjects. He wanted me
to have a *proper* career. I was not able to do both Art and History
because the Curriculum couldn't timetable them alongside each other and
my parents insisted I continued with History. The three subjects were
chosen for me - History, English Literature and Economics. Now bearing
in mind that I failed English Literature at *O* level and also Maths,
the combination in hindsight, was a farce. I just scraped a pass in
History and failed the other two and of course, couldn't get into Art
School because I didn't have *A* level art, which would have meant going
back to do two years in the art school where I originally should have
gone, for which I would have had to pay.
This is a pretty classic story - I have talked to many people of the
same age in the arts that had similar problems pursuing a career in Art
because of the negative attitude towards it and because Art was, and is
still not, time tabled in the Curriculum to allow art students to also
do academic subjects.
Alison A Raimes
<jh...@columbia.edu> writes
>Tell Marilyn it's a portmanteau word, formed from "conflict" and
>"affliction," two subjects on which one complaining about grammar in
>raf should be expert. :)
>
OK I will ! The post was started by someone in alt.philosophy so her
complaint, which she posted to just over a thousand people across the
four newsgroups, was aimed at him I presume. I wonder why she considered
grammar to be part of the debate anyway - it only goes to confirm what
they were accusing artists off in that post - artists can be *woolly*
thinkers.
Alison A Raimes
<ro...@earth.execpc.com> writes
>
>Money might be a satisfactory means of evaluating art since it is
>used for everyone else's labor. Artists need to bypass the experts
>and sell directly to their clients. This will probably mean that
>the fine arts artists will have to evaluate the needs of their
>clientele and create art to match those needs.
I totally agree with you. Absolutely. Fifteen of us have formed a co-
operative in London and share the running of the gallery and the costs.
Nine of us are well into profit after the first year.
>
>Although I don't watch spectator sports very much, I can see
>why people spend much more time being a spectator than looking
>at a painting.
Why ? And do they ? That is hard to evaluate. John Haber and I queued
for almost two hours at the Brooklyn Museum to see the British show that
was causing all the controversy, last month. In London that show brought
in just under a million people and in NY it is set to go way over that.
The Monet exhibition had to open all night at the Royal Academy to cope
with the crowds. How can we measure how many people spend time reading
and looking at art, or how many attend all the thousands of exhibitions
that are underway across the world every month ?
Alison A Raimes
<ji...@jradams.demon.co.uk> writes
>I would be very surprised in the two were not related. To get a message
>from a chart you need to look at it, and we are more likely to look at
>attractive things than unattractive things. The validity of the
>proposition could easily be tested: you might suggest it to one of your
>clients as a nice research project. Call it the Adams-Mattila-Raimes
>effect (ARME).
But isn't the whole idea of the modern day *sublime feeling* one that
can only be achieved through shock - that, in fact, we are more likely
today to seek out *unattractive* things ? Pleasure from displeasure ?
The queues as you pass by a car crash for instance.
Not sure about your arme, Jimmy, I think it would want to go in three
different directions ;-)
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
M.
One wasn't complaining, one was wondering if it wasn't another of
Alison's
made up words like "scrutinization" for scrutiny.
Tell Alison that it's true many artists are capable of wooly thinking
especially when
working on tapisseries.
Marilyn
jimmy adams
<ali...@see.signature.for.address> writes
>In article <LBZLnFAF...@jradams.demon.co.uk>, jimmy adams
><ji...@jradams.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>>I would be very surprised in the two were not related. To get a message
>>from a chart you need to look at it, and we are more likely to look at
>>attractive things than unattractive things. The validity of the
>>proposition could easily be tested: you might suggest it to one of your
>>clients as a nice research project. Call it the Adams-Mattila-Raimes
>>effect (ARME).
>
>But isn't the whole idea of the modern day *sublime feeling* one that
>can only be achieved through shock - that, in fact, we are more likely
>today to seek out *unattractive* things ? Pleasure from displeasure ?
>The queues as you pass by a car crash for instance.
>
Clearly the second would need more "artistic" input than the first,
which can be achieved purely through good choice of colours and
typefaces, which many scientists can manage for themselves.
However, whatever today's fashions may be, I'm not sure that shock
tactics would win. To communicate, you have to attract attention, but
having attracted it you then have to convey the message. In Guernica,
for example, the two could be successfully combined; in presenting the
findings of strength tests on a new plastic, I'm not so sure ,,,
Anyway, good luck!
--
jimmy adams
Alison A Raimes
<jh...@columbia.edu> writes
>Perhaps it's less important for philosophy to respond to the charge
>than to analyze it. What's it a symptom of? Just as it's been argued
>that many fields of culture, philosophy, and modern art arose because
>the individual feels diminished in a corporate, media-driven world,
>perhaps the sense of loss for artists is what should be considered.
>What is it, and what brought it on? It may not turn out to be
>esthetics.
John: The sense of loss for an artist ? Interesting. Most artists think
they have a new found freedom. What then did artists have before that
they do not have now, since the media driven world took over ?
The development of psychology and its related importance to perception
and art has probably been the biggest influence this century, hence
Arnheim's presence in the discussion. The investigation deserves some
more time looking at the developments of the human personality,
motivation and social relations. Arnheim suggests that Art has become
accepted as an essential instrument for the formation and expression of
the human personality and that historians are accustomed to viewing new
art as a manifestation of the mentality of a given culture, social group
or creative individual.
I am deeply suspicious of this - the *self* when attached to the term
*expression*, has become a tool for many to live out some sort of
fantasy created by the idea of the *Artist*, and many as Jimmy suggests,
go so far as to create a myth for themselves based on the glamorisation
of art in history. The artist slashing at the painting to let his
emotions free has become symbolic of this century. In my experience
there are very few artists who actually work like this. I would prefer
to think that art serves as an expression of certain conceptions of life
- or as Arnheim says as *an expression of an attitude towards life and
an indispensable tool in dealing with the tasks of life*.
So is art really different to any other reasonably interesting human
occupation ? Of course not - its important to artists because it is
their chosen field, just like any other profession or vocation that one
immerses oneself in. It becomes singularly the most important thing to
that individual, and even the viewer who becomes intrigued by the end
results or by the role of art in today's society.
Gestalt Psychology always fascinated me in regard to looking for
correlation between the human personality and reactions to environment
stimuli, particularly in relation to the study of colour. The Gestalt
theory suggests that the various experiences that are commonly clarified
under *perception of expression* are caused by a number of psychological
processes - it detaches *expression* from being singularly part of the
perceptive process. At the Bauhaus, expression was referred to as being
a property of colour, shape or space unrelated to function.
So I wonder if artists today, have become too dependant what they
believe art has become - the idea of it being *self-expression* has
taken over from the traditional responses to dealing with space, colour
and form and the materials available for them to do so.
Have artists now become so consumed by the need to establish their place
in history that they are creating the place ?
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
kat...@dnai.com
protected by the US Constitution; and (c) acceptable to my ISP's Terms
Of Service.
"~Artist~" <matt...@att.net> reposted and cross-posted this thread,
which did not originate in ba.general:
>We are restarting the arts & craft movment in Ca
Really? Business at Michael's and Jo-Ann's seems to have been booming
without any help from Mattie.
>and all we did was show up
>in 1990 with one moasic at a garden show!!!!!!!
(More spam.)
>Now look what happened it is all over the country again.
I must have missed that article in Martha Stewart Living about how
Mattison Fitzgerald single-handedly revived arts and crafts.
>I could go on
And she will..
>what about your ties geekers? and those dockers????
>Can't you get them in psycho.h.e.man.d.e.llic or
>psycho.healin.man d.e.llic?
I think the J. Garcia clothing line was discontinued for lack of
interest. (I believe the ties are still available, though; they look
pretty cool with Dockers.)
>That could be nice to go with the bug and those art cars m all.
Speaking of art cars, loft space is ever so much cheaper in Houston
than in San Jo. I think Mattie should strongly consider relocating to
the Art Car Capital of America. (Besides, she wouldn't last two
minutes in houston.general.)
>Downtown Silly Icon Valley is like a bad catholic school for
>fashion! Especially the men.
Yeah, Intel probably doesn't much like it when you show up for a
meeting wearing a djellabah or a burnoose.
>Visual artists I have and musicians and sports people and
>huge ceos, most are regualr people. I won't list them all
>because I will be accused of name dropping.
If Mattie were really such a great artist, and if she really knew all
these famous, powerful, influential people, I suspect she would have a
lot less time to flog her businesses on inappropriate Usenet groups,
post her illiterate silliness, and harass innocent people.
>I have met a few, most are egotistical to keep the space because
>they are over run by jealous people
Translation: Mattie's rationale for being an unpleasant ego bomb is
because everyone who doesn't like her is just plain jealous.
>stalkers
Mattie flatters herself when she alleges that she is being "stalked".
Just wait till I show up at one of her billiard parlor "exhibitions"
and wave my checkbook in her direction.
>I used to date a hear surgeon one of the best living today.
Come to think of it, there are a lot of those in Houston, too.
Really, I think it's ideal for her.
>He honey was exactly the opposite of artist. No heart all calculation
>and not one single ounce of patience for one mistake and talk
>about stressed out and out of touch with humaness....
Yeah, someone who dedicated his life to saving human lives is "out of
touch with humaness". Personally, I think a guy who does this, who
will not tolerate mistakes, and suffers from the stress of his immense
mantle of responsiblility, sounds like the very spirit of the true
meaning of "humaness".
>exactly why he chased me....artist are in touch with it....
I think we can guess the "it" which Mattie refers to here.
>even if heart surgeons do to they can never admit it because
>they might have killed someone in the process and living with
>that would be tooo huge day in and day out.
What self-centered tripe. Heart surgeons are operating on those who
would otherwise BE dead without their intervention. Each patient
knows the risk, and would rather risk what would be their certain fate
without the surgery, for a chance to live.
>This happens in every field look at technology. I know mothers
>of 5 working for assemblers in this valley who have no english for
>minimum wage
They don't speak English and they get minimum wage? That sounds quite
generous to me. There are many who don't speak English who are not
getting minimum wage. My faith in advancement and reward for same has
been reaffirmed.
>while the CEO's are porsched out with no thinking and they don't eveh
>have the courtsey in Silicon Valley to suppor the charaties art or
>otherwise
If someone has a damn good idea and is willing to put his/her blood,
sweat and tears on the line to found a corporation, employ people, and
make that idea successful, I say, let 'em have TWO Boxsters! Besides,
how is that art charity supposed to help out the non-English speaking
mother of five, who is earning minimum wage despite lacking basic
American language skills?
>Sure there is dirty money and it is everywhere...so what .... so the
>artist takes a smidgen of it back to the ghetto and buys paint tape
>wood whatever....hires kids to do a huge mural at least some made
>it back to some good...
I've been wondering if it's Mattie's "kids" who spray-painted the
giant bong on a 680 overpass.
Ron Peterson
: Why ? And do they ? That is hard to evaluate. John Haber and I queued
: for almost two hours at the Brooklyn Museum to see the British show that
: was causing all the controversy, last month. In London that show brought
: in just under a million people and in NY it is set to go way over that.
: The Monet exhibition had to open all night at the Royal Academy to cope
: with the crowds. How can we measure how many people spend time reading
: and looking at art, or how many attend all the thousands of exhibitions
: that are underway across the world every month ?
A sporting event has a sense of urgency that a painting doesn't have.
If you don't watch a sporting event it is gone forever.
A supporting event has a sense of suspense and forces your mind to
work. Most art viewers spend only a minute or two at each painting
which is certainly inadequate for all of the effort that has been
put into those paintings.
Ron
Erik A. Mattila
not viewed. We have the confidence that it exists in life -- there in the
background, and I think that most find this reassuring, for some reason. I
think the feared 'mechanical' society of the imagination is one that it
artless, purely functional. If the dike leaks, poke your finger in the hole.
Sports are, by contrast, spectacular events that happen in another social
time zone. I really liked your remarks about the temporality of sports,
compared with paintings hanging in a museum. It makes me think that the
minute or two before the painting is a sort of ritual social reaffirmation
ceremony. I wonder if it's the same for a football game?
Erik Mattila
Erik A. Mattila
art-fluff issue. I'll have to perform role-reversal in retaliation -- mind
you, only a temporary mode.
Alison A Raimes wrote:
I knew an artist, Artimio Supulveda, who was holding his own in Laguna
Beach, CA by making these very lovely, volumetric figures of "Mother and
Child" with a particular Mexican flavor. I visited him at his studio, and
there he was 'slashing at his paintings' which in this case were butcher
paper and cheap tempera. I looked and said that reminds me of Sequieos and
he said that that wasn't surprising since he had studied with Sequieros for
seveal years in Mexico, including being on the crew that created the "March
of Progress of Humanity in Latin America." "If I have to paint another
goddammed Mother and Child I think I'll just shoot myself!"
I saw the whole episode as the contest between the cooly calculated
approach to the local art market, which in Laguna Beach is often quite
superficial, versus the 'self-expression, angst' approach, which also seems
to be attached to some sort of strike against the art market - or at least
the hacked-out thought that production is not tied to consumption, eh? (as
in "I don't want to prostitute my art" where production/consumption values
are alligned with the most socially dispicable metaphor available. )
But I think Artimio, or anyone esle, has some legitimacy in seeing art
making and artist-being in these terms, even though the behavior is part
and parcel of a social transcript -- as if the character role has been
already devised and written into the script. It just means the artist is a
member of a culture and behaves accordingly. It's inescapable. Even the
critic or philosopher who claims neutral perspective -- an 'acultural
position' is subject to the workings of culture - and this is not to say
there is no value in the very complex project of finding critical
distance. Basically, I'm saying that it's OK to play the role. You know,
there's something that I just can't put my finger on (find the words). Its
an ideological position that takes on the appearance of universal
dimensions and thought of as an ultimate truth - that opposes the
recognition that we are in the end cultural animals. I think this may be a
paper tiger, really, since culture will always intervene and shape the
world that we witness.
> So is art really different to any other reasonably interesting human
> occupation ? Of course not - its important to artists because it is
> their chosen field, just like any other profession or vocation that one
> immerses oneself in. It becomes singularly the most important thing to
> that individual, and even the viewer who becomes intrigued by the end
> results or by the role of art in today's society.
But the whole "Death of the Author (Artist)" motif that appeared in the
texts of the 20th century proposed to liberate art from biography, which
was sort of a 'freeing up' so Art could be viewed as something that existed
in culture independent of a personal life. I don't think the same thing
exists for carpentry or dentistry. This may be the miserable lot of all
artists -- since it always means that the compromises one must make to the
demands of life is pit against a very high ideal (maybe impossibly high).
> Gestalt Psychology always fascinated me in regard to looking for
> correlation between the human personality and reactions to environment
> stimuli, particularly in relation to the study of colour. The Gestalt
> theory suggests that the various experiences that are commonly clarified
> under *perception of expression* are caused by a number of psychological
> processes - it detaches *expression* from being singularly part of the
> perceptive process. At the Bauhaus, expression was referred to as being
> a property of colour, shape or space unrelated to function.
My compromise was to finally understand that what I am drawn to about art
making is just working with my hands, as I find that kind of headspace that
results is addictive. So it is, in a way, a nervous response to my
environment. I think I have confronted most of the ideas of profundity
that I attached to this process and debunked them, one by one, after a long
period of struggle. In a sense it's a wonderful sense of liberation, since
I don't have to worry about significance, profundity, self-expression or
whatever. I also don't worry about immortality, or it's symbolic form of
living on after death in memory, art books, histories etc.
> So I wonder if artists today, have become too dependant what they
> believe art has become - the idea of it being *self-expression* has
> taken over from the traditional responses to dealing with space, colour
> and form and the materials available for them to do so.
Well, it seems to be a discourse and you decide to participate in it or
not. I don't fault those who decide to jump in and participate -- I admire
them. I would argue, however, that such a participation is just what it
is, and that is assuming and accepting the social role rather than being an
exponent of some grand universal phenomena. Since some here on RAF have
explicitly argued for these universal values, I suspect that the same would
be uncomfortable or dissappointed in seeing themselves as specific cultural
practioners.
> Have artists now become so consumed by the need to establish their place
> in history that they are creating the place ?
> Alison
> ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
> http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Probably an easier form to look at with regard to your question is the
performing arts, especially the pop arts. I'm just saying this because
there already is public discourse on the subject of 'fame' in this context,
so there are not so many sacred cows to confront when examining the lust
for fame and superstardom. But the one idea I've alread suggest is the
desire for immortality, which must be the reverse side of the fear of death
coin.
Eirk
Madeleine Norman
mdeli wrote:
>
> The System-How brand name artists are created.
> You won't learn about this in art school.
>
> Among the major things critics, museum curators and top of the line
> gallery owners must do in order to maintain the high prices of brand
> name Bluechip Modern Artists are:
>
> -make sure that their artists doesn't lower prices by flooding the
> market. (any Bluechip minimalist can usually knock out works at a
> furious rate and might have a strong desire to do this. )
>
> -make sure that imitators are denigrated and ignored. (That's why
> Mondrian imitators are banned.)
>
> -make sure that all aesthetic competition is carefully kept out of
> sight (that's why you rarely see paintings by illustrators like Norman
> Rockwell and the finest realism and surrealism in art museums The holy
> sites which house Modern Academic Art must be kept pure)
>
> What is kept off the market is as important as what goes on the market
>
> Did you ever wonder how all that incompetent minimal
> practically-nothing-artwork and no-skill-realism gets into the modern
> art sections of museums and those richy collections? Or, why artworks
> which look worthy of little more than a passing glance attained that
> astronomical price range you read about?
>
> Here are some of the reasons why brand-name creators of Blue Chip
> Modern Art get all that attention while thousands of others who create
> much the same thing rarely sell anything?
>
> The brand name modern artist is not really the result of any public
> consensus. He is more often then not the creation of art dealers,
> critics, and museum curators working together much like stock market
> insiders. Raising art market prices often requires little more than
> quite agreements among small groups representing these professions who
> own and speculate in modern art and profit from it.
>
> Essentially all it takes is few insiders geting together each agreeing
> to do his part in order to push a particular artist. The museum
> curator agrees to exhibit or purchase while the critic agrees to do
> his bit of complimenting and the dealer agrees to show and publicize.
>
> This allows all for all kinds of deals. It can involve pooling money
> in order to invest in an artist they plan to push or marketing what
> they already own.
>
> Anyone interested has often read newspaper articles about the sale of
> some now famous modern work that fetched some millions in auction.
> These articles usually mention the price, the artist, and the auction
> house very prominently in the headline. They also describe the
> sensational bidding by buyers and mention former prices in comparison
> with the latest. However they rarely mention auction pooling, shill
> bids, auction house extended credit and fake sales.
>
> One of the best price indicators for Modern Art is revealed` at those
> highly publicized Bluechip Modern auctions. Before an important
> auction those who own works by a particular artist will contact one
> another and form a biding pools. These can be large or small. The pool
> members will agree to bid up the auction price of a particular work to
> a certain high value. The obvious intention here is to raise the
> selling price of their inventory. If their bidding is successful each
> pays an agreed percentage of the bid price. Should someone other than
> the dealer surpass the pool bid price so much the better for the
> dealers who have inventory. The higher the final bid price for an
> artwork the better for all those who hold that artists work.
>
> I'm sure any intelligent reader can figure out other variations. The
> point here is that the exhibition, the praise and the prices for brand
> name Blue Chip artwork is to a very high degree controlled by insiders
> with the right connections. The actual works of these artists rarely
> represent any consensus public taste as the public is only allowed to
> hear about and see certain works in those places which are acclaimed
> to exhibit great art
John Haber
>I am deeply suspicious of this - the *self* when attached to the term
>*expression*, has become a tool for many to live out some sort of
>fantasy created by the idea of the *Artist*, and many as Jimmy suggests,
>go so far as to create a myth for themselves based on the glamorisation
>of art in history. The artist slashing at the painting to let his
>emotions free has become symbolic of this century. In my experience
>there are very few artists who actually work like this. I would prefer
>to think that art serves as an expression of certain conceptions of life
>- or as Arnheim says as *an expression of an attitude towards life and
>an indispensable tool in dealing with the tasks of life*.
That makes a lot of sense to me. But it definitely gets people down.
Maybe just before we were born, philosophy and psychology (which meant
Existentialism and Freud or Jung) was telling people their heads and
the crises they were having mattered. The arts community was small,
and the establishment critics, like that of the NY Times, were so
hostile to it that artists could safely be at odds with them.
Now philosophers sound like you here, asking people to look at
themselves as part of life, and art is awfully hard to break into.
Critics and artists are now part of the same system, too; we feed off
each other. Meanwhile everyone feels pretty powerless these days, I
gotta say, not particularly artists.
So sure, there are going to be people looking for some establishment
to blame. But I have to say: it's usually the same people who whine
about philosophy who also are whining that art has past them by. It's
pretty much the same raf contingent who thinks the world hates them
for being realist who also hate words.
We all throw words around loosely here. Sometimes I'll sound funny,
with impromptu attempts at deep analysis. Or maybe sometimes the
artists will sound funny to me, too much spiritual values. But
basically we all know just to get on with it.
John Haber
>Alas, I imagine they'd turn kids off to art just as quickly as they did
>at one time in science!
Oh, here in the US at least, they still do a good job of turning kids
off to science. I vaguely remember my art class in grade school -- my
last. We'd have to draw or paint the same assignment each year: it'd
always have to show the same features, an adult or two, a child, a
tree, .... Pretty funny.
John Haber
>This is a pretty classic story - I have talked to many people of the
>same age in the arts that had similar problems pursuing a career in Art
That was interesting. It's a complex system for us Americans to grasp
-- art school, A levels, O levels, all in competition.
BTW, I'm still absorbing that you'd get paid to go to school. Total
tuition at my alma mater for four years (which I think includes a room
but not any food) is about $135,000.
Alison A Raimes
<jh...@columbia.edu> writes
>
>BTW, I'm still absorbing that you'd get paid to go to school. Total
>tuition at my alma mater for four years (which I think includes a room
>but not any food) is about $135,000.
Well it ain't that great ! I just learned that the Slade School of Art,
where I am applying for MA (two years theory based masters in painting)
doesn't give bursaries to over forties. That means I have to go after a
scholarship and I should have done that by now. ;-) However, the Royal
College has bursaries of around 12,000 pounds per year - fees all paid -
but getting in there is almost impossible.
BTW, its my turn, John - no outgoing mail on my server system but I am
getting your incoming - keep filling the box up !
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Murphenko
Alison A Raimes wrote:
Why is it impossible to get into the Royal College?
John Haber
>I really liked your [Ron's] remarks about the temporality of sports,
>compared with paintings hanging in a museum.
OTOH, sports are replayed for us endlessly. It starts with the
required four instant replies, then the morning papers and the myths.
It's a part of experience, like much of the best of popular culture,
that both gets you in the gut in a wonderful way but is impossible to
experience except as it's handed to you.
Art is always in danger of vanishing, because it doesn't have that
sustanance, because if it's a painting it degrades or if it's
performance art it is over, because the work to come and cultural
change are always giving it a changed context and meaning, and because
each person has to approach it with new insights.
In that circumstance of the museum that Ron describes perceptive, with
each of us marching past a work in two seconds, that can be awful to
art, although the processes I describe are conversely the source of
its strength. I'm often embarrassed how fast I duck into galleries
now to form impressions, when a decade ago I was giving things so much
time because the art world was smaller and I needed so much to open my
mind and get the hang of this weird stuff.
I am of course overstating things to play a mind game. Like I was
saying with the sublime this morning, I'd just hate to see a myth of
art's eternal beauty hide something great and scary about it.
j
Ron Peterson
: In that circumstance of the museum that Ron describes perceptive, with
: each of us marching past a work in two seconds, that can be awful to
: art, although the processes I describe are conversely the source of
: its strength. I'm often embarrassed how fast I duck into galleries
: now to form impressions, when a decade ago I was giving things so much
: time because the art world was smaller and I needed so much to open my
: mind and get the hang of this weird stuff.
Viewing time will probably shrink to milliseconds in the future. I
have a laser disc of some of the paintings at the Louvre and I can
step through those paintings pretty quickly. The player stops at
each frame with a frame explaining the painting, another showing
the painting, and other frames showing detail. Unfortunately, TV
resolution leaves a lot to be desired.
Art probably needs to be studied scientifically to make progress
in satisfying people's needs. Leonardo de Vinci was well
learned and was able to make memorable art works.
Ron
Alison A Raimes
<jh...@columbia.edu> writes
>In that circumstance of the museum that Ron describes perceptive, with
>each of us marching past a work in two seconds, that can be awful to
>art, although the processes I describe are conversely the source of
>its strength. I'm often embarrassed how fast I duck into galleries
>now to form impressions, when a decade ago I was giving things so much
>time because the art world was smaller and I needed so much to open my
>mind and get the hang of this weird stuff.
The popular shows are having to implement crowd control restrictions
now. The British show Sensation had two hour queues every day it was
open in London - to overcome it people joined as a *friend* of the Royal
Academy so that they could bye pass the wait and enabled them to sign a
guest in free of charge. When the Monet exhibition arrived at the Royal
Academy they started opening all night to cope with the crowds ! True
this. The queues for the friends became as long as the regular queues.
On Thursday I went to the Renaissance Florence exhibition at the
National Gallery where they limit the number of people allowed into the
show at one time. As far as I am concerned they failed - it was like a
soccer match, everyone scrambling to get to actually see the paintings.
How can you enjoy the experience of the work under those circumstances ?
I vote for a de-popularising of art !
Cheers.
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Lauri Levanto
<snip>
... As far as I am concerned they failed - it was like a
> soccer match, everyone scrambling to get to actually see the paintings.
> How can you enjoy the experience of the work under those circumstances ?
> I vote for a de-popularising of art !
>
> Cheers.
> Alison
> ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
> http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Do you think these shows are intended for enjoying art?
Are the three tenor stadium concerts for music?
I believe giant shows are more part of entertainment industry
and fund raising.
- lauri
Erik A. Mattila
with the notion that open-mindedness was a virtue. You seem to be
suggesting that it is not a virtue. I've never explored this alternative.
Could you explain, just for the record, how open-mindedness would be less
than virtuous?
Thanks in advance,
Erik
mdeli wrote:
> On 12 Nov 1999 18:47:06 -0600, ro...@earth.execpc.com (Ron Peterson)
> wrote:
>
> >John Haber (jh...@columbia.edu) wrote:
> >
> >: In that circumstance of the museum that Ron describes perceptive, with
> >: each of us marching past a work in two seconds, that can be awful to
> >: art, although the processes I describe are conversely the source of
> >: its strength. I'm often embarrassed how fast I duck into galleries
> >: now to form impressions, when a decade ago I was giving things so much
> >: time because the art world was smaller and I needed so much to open my
> >: mind and get the hang of this weird stuff.
> >
> Haber's mind is little more than a large opening.
>
> >Art probably needs to be studied scientifically to make progress
> >in satisfying people's needs. Leonardo de Vinci was well
> >learned and was able to make memorable art works.
> >
> Today's Modern Academic Art is designed for a fifteen second glance
> for a man in a rush. It deserves little more.
jimmy adams
<lauri....@nokia.com> writes
it helps a great deal to have a large proportion of an artist's work in
one place at one time, especially if, as it usually is, the works are
arranged historically, with references to the artist's life at that
time.
Now that art is so popular, it is difficult to know. Do we encourage
curators to put on *unpopular* shows, so that we may see them in
comfort? Double the prices, to let economics take its effect (and keep
out the students)?
What's the professional solution, Alison?
--
jimmy adams
mdeli
Erik A. Mattila
the quite periods of contemplation and meditations. I mean look at the
'in-between blockbusters' periods, where one can view works of art in relative
solitude, especially on a Monday morining at 10.
Once, while at the De Young in San Francisco, I stumbled into a wing that was
showing a collection of Etienne-Louis Boullee originals. Wow, I had never
heard of the fellow, and since that time I've never forgotten him. In
addition, now that I know a little more about it, I realise that this
assemblage of his works was very rare. There is probably no place in the
world where you can view so many le Boullee's in one place (and the De Young
was exhibiting borrowed drawings, so the exhibit was really a 'one of a
kind.') When I saw them (around 1962) there was no one else in the wing
besides a guarde who kept nodding out in his corner. I think it might be
possible today to mount a Boullee blockbuster. You would have to have the
cooperation of the press and the art rags, of course, but what a case you
could make to promote the show.
Many years later, on seeing Peter Greenaway's "Belly of an Architect," the
film was that much more meaningful to me because a junior curator at the De
Young had convinced his or her superiors that the Le Boullee exhibit was
meaningful museum business (most of Boulee's designs were never built).
So my question is about art being more popular today than in the past? The
alternative is that the blockbuster itself is the form that is popular, rather
than the works of art displayed. The blockbuster takes on the aura of the
grand spectacle of culture, and participation in it may in fact be the draw.
Imagine the thrill of being able to say, when viewing documentary footage of
say, Martin Luther King's "Mountaintop" speech at the March on Washington
event, and knowing that you were there, out in the throng. The first
blockbuster I attended (and it may actually have been the first of this museum
form) was the Van Gogh exhibit in 1958 or 59, again in San Francisco. This
exhibit was also, as I recall, mounted in Paris, London, New York during it's
two year lifespan. By the way, although it was well attended, it was very
manageable. The blockbuster idea was new, and still appealed to types of
persons who would go to an art musuem anyway. Blockbusterality in its
infancy, you might say. The last one I attempted to attend was a Teotihuacan
exhibit at the De Young in 1996. It was impossible -- utterly rediculouse
once inside since you could only see necks and collars and backs of heads,
with an occassional gimpse at the background of the event - the works of art.
I left after about three rooms and went outside and waited for my companions.
Another, in 1988, was "Neo Impressionists" at the De Young, which actually was
the Impressionists (for some reason 'neo') and it was pretty good. You bought
tickets with appointment times on them, and they were very careful to not let
too many people in at once (you had to get your reservation about two months
in advance). It was still a bit crowded, but you could see the works. But
imagine -- you have to look at Impressionist painting from a distance. But if
you back off your claimed space to get the 'big picture' inevitably someone
oozes in in front of you. My tactic was to stand and rotate in the middle of
the room, hoping for some cursive glances of the paintings through the
ocassional voids. But what is evident is that generally people are very happy
to participate in the blockbuster, so since you really can't see the art well,
this happiness must come from another source. I think it's that sense of
being a part of history. I was there.
As an aside, around the time of the first museum blockbuster, was the first
media blockbuster event, whch was the execution of Carryl Chessman in the San
Quintin prison's gas chamber. At my high school in Los Angeles were were all
forced to participate, since a radio representation of the execution was
broadcast on the school's PA system into all the class rooms. We were all
transfixed - "The cyonide capsule has slid down the chute into the water, and
we can see the fumes rising. CHESSMAN IS TWITCHING IN HIS CHAIR! He is now
slumped down. The doctor has just pronounced him officially dead!" Whew, it
was very dramatic. It has haunted me all my life as it haunted Governor
Edmund Brown to his dying day. But I was part of history.
Erik Mattila
Alison A Raimes
>Do you think these shows are intended for enjoying art?
>Are the three tenor stadium concerts for music?
>I believe giant shows are more part of entertainment industry
>and fund raising.
>
>- lauri
You are being too cynical and generalising too much. For instance, you
named your thread *what is in in Scandinavia*. In so doing you put
yourself forward as judge and juror on the art scene in Scandinavia at
one particular time in history. You failed to acknowledge Malevich as
one of the leading Abstract painters of this century and declared that,
based on the few shows you cited, that Abstract art was not *in*. You
also failed to give a picture of what else has been shown during the
year and an idea of what is going on in the *real* art world - the
working artists in their studios and the small galleries that represent
them.
Artists feed from seeing the work of other artists across a period of
their working lives and the major shows are essential for this. Mostly
we are used to just seeing one stage of their career in reproduction and
are asked to base our opinions on those works. The chance to see the
progress of an artist allows the viewer to grasp what the centre of
their work is about. Its vital for working artists to have exposure to
this. Nothing to do with the entertainment industry unless it is
marketed in such a way to attract crowds that are not interested in
this.
--
Alison A Raimes
writes
>Haber's mind is little more than a large opening.
He has to make way for the big heads in newsgroups to get a look in ;-)
John Haber
>He has to make way for the big heads in newsgroups to get a look in ;-)
LOL. Oh, well, I have to stick up for the right of artists -- and so
everyone in this group but me -- to have a big ego. I suspect it's
the only way to keep going! I, of course, have no excuse.
John Haber
>When the Monet exhibition arrived at the Royal
>Academy they started opening all night to cope with the crowds !
Maybe we could get some galleries to open like that all the time, when
there's nothing popular. And add intermittently harsh, low lights,
like in some vision of the streets of Paris for Baudelaire. I think I
could get into that mood.
>The queues for the friends became as long as the regular queues.
>On Thursday I went to the Renaissance Florence exhibition at the
>National Gallery where they limit the number of people allowed into the
>show at one time. As far as I am concerned they failed - it was like a
>soccer match, everyone scrambling to get to actually see the paintings.
>How can you enjoy the experience of the work under those circumstances ?
>I vote for a de-popularising of art !
Awful. And in "ordinary" life, the Renaissance galleries are the
parts of the Met people are just passing through. Maybe they can be
labeled something special next time there's an exhibit worth seeing
elsewhere in the building.
Seriously, people often talk about how the notion of an avant-garde
has gone bust. They discuss it sometimes from, well, the side of the
supplier -- the museum, the blockbuster, commercial products based on
art, etc. The art world as a real entity. And sometimes they talk
about it from the side of the artist -- the old routine of shocks
losing their shock. Sometimes the two are discussed together. That
could be either to say that we're too famliar and mainstream to shock,
or else to say that shocks put us in line with commercial culture,
like all the explosions in movies.
And then there's the paradox that we're not that mainstream. The
world pretty much still has Giuliani's and Mani's taste, or maybe just
taste for Monet and Van Gogh. That then leads the argument into more
depth on defining the system. Well, you know all that. Tried and
true.
In reviews of Sensation, I'd have liked more recognition that this was
already a familiar issue before the show fell into it.
But let me throw this out. What can we actually do? I try as a
writer to respond in some ways -- by not dealing in capsule reviews,
by sneaking theory in, and by assuming that to become fresh art needs
help in interpretation so it can recover meanings -- like that example
I keep giving of the pretty cherubs in the Sistine Madonna really
being part of a Madonna. But I don't pretend (a) I matter and (b)
this is a terribly impressive strategy anyhow in the long run.
John Haber
>Do you think these shows are intended for enjoying art?
>Are the three tenor stadium concerts for music?
>I believe giant shows are more part of entertainment industry
>and fund raising.
You've got a point, but don't go overboard. I mean, it seems to
suggest that nobody seriously could have benefitted from so many
Vermeers in one place in America or people being spared a complicated
trip to Italy they can't afford, not to mention the help in
appreciation the museum probably supplied -- and the spur to research.
Or it suggests that there are some other series of Renaissance shows,
kind of like there are other concert venues than the stadium.
Naw, Alison's talking about a real problem. Don't talk it away.
Ponderable
>When the Monet exhibition arrived at the Royal
>Academy they started opening all night to cope with the crowds !
There is a gallery in Tokyo which is open 24 hours. They claim to do a lot of
business in the wee hours.
Tim Folzenlogen
Lauri Levanto
I am not capable of proper art criticism.
Just wanted to remind there is life outside
the Saatchi collections.
Malevich, that collection showed his development from
representational to abstraction. It is propably
my personal bias that the few abstract pieces
did not stand out as true gems, but more as a logical
end point of development.
It was an important show for me because I'm working
my way towards more abstraction.
When I labeled what is "IN" my judgement was based on
what was promoted in local media in each country.
尋ore on less I had to rely on that information when
building my agenda.
I understand the phrase "IN" to refer exactly what
Erik called blockbuster shows. Without the aid of some
local John Habers, I dare not guess which small
galleries point the current trends of young artists.
The question of real artists is too faceted to discuss now.
It may mean anything between cutting edge and mass markets.
There are plenty of "real" artist in Chelsea,
but globally they are outnumbered.
I agree with you that biographical reviews are important, and
the only possibility is that museums arrange traveling exhibitions
of borrowed works.
show. The fact that those are too crowded, was illustrated in Louisiana,
where the museum shop (Magritte calendars, Magritte neckties,
Magritte whatever) was more crowded than the exhibition halls.
In ths unperfect world, fund raising is a part of art exhibition.
While the Hill retrospective was too crowded, I enjoyed the
quiet basic collection at national Museum. I didn't know before
how modern way Rubens treated the background landscapes in his works.
- lauri
Alison A Raimes wrote:
>
> In article <382D70...@nokia.com>, Lauri Levanto
> <lauri....@nokia.com> writes
>
> >Do you think these shows are intended for enjoying art?
> >Are the three tenor stadium concerts for music?
> >I believe giant shows are more part of entertainment industry
> >and fund raising.
> >
> >- lauri
>
> You are being too cynical and generalising too much. For instance, you
> named your thread *what is in in Scandinavia*. In so doing you put
> yourself forward as judge and juror on the art scene in Scandinavia at
> one particular time in history. You failed to acknowledge Malevich as
> one of the leading Abstract painters of this century and declared that,
> based on the few shows you cited, that Abstract art was not *in*. You
> also failed to give a picture of what else has been shown during the
> year and an idea of what is going on in the *real* art world - the
> working artists in their studios and the small galleries that represent
> them.
>
> Artists feed from seeing the work of other artists across a period of
> their working lives and the major shows are essential for this. Mostly
> we are used to just seeing one stage of their career in reproduction and
> are asked to base our opinions on those works. The chance to see the
> progress of an artist allows the viewer to grasp what the centre of
> their work is about. Its vital for working artists to have exposure to
> this. Nothing to do with the entertainment industry unless it is
> marketed in such a way to attract crowds that are not interested in
> this.
>
Ron Peterson
: Most people aren't really interested in art. I recall the Vermeer show
: in D.C., packed. But how many people flock to see the Vermeers in D.C.
: or NYC after the hype has blown over. The few who are really
: interested.
I have a feeling that the problem may be that artists aren't interested
in philosophy, science, math, techology, or people. If art is devoid
of content, why should anybody be interested?
I attended a lecture today that was primarily attended by technically
oriented people and the lecture was about higher dimensional objects
with many artistic illustrations. See http://www.pickover.com/.
Ron
Ponderable
>in philosophy, science, math, techology, or people. If art is devoid
>of content, why should anybody be interested?
On occasion, I've given talks at art schools. The above brings to mind a point
I would always try to make.
Most artists, especially the art school types who are still living this fantasy
movie in their head (having had little contact with reality) feel they have no
responsibility toward the general public. They see becoming concerned with
public concerns as "selling out".
They are fond of saying: "I refuse to prostitute (they always use that word) my
work" (normally said while gazing upward shaking their hair out of their eyes).
What's weird is that these same people (who wouldn't cross the street to meet a
client) actually expect people to flock to their shows.
The business end of art (shows, galleries, sales) are definitly two-way
streets. You can't realisticly expect people to take an interest in you unless
you (at least) have the capacity to take an interest in them. There has to be
some kind of foundation for give and take.
I'm always very interested in what anyone has to say about my work. This
doesn't mean that I make artificial changes in my direction to please them.
However, I don't doubt that the opinions of others do influence me as I am
indeed genuinely interested. I always think about what they say and then
respond. It's not selling out if it is who you genuinely are.
If you want to succeed in business, being interested in others should be
something you genuinely are.
To which art students would reply that I am compromising.
To which I would reply that all of life is a compromise. You don't want to work
with others? (Which also means business relationships - which artists are not
terrific at either. Ask any dealer and they will have a long list of artist
horror stories - most of whom (artists) are directly responsible for blowing
their own careers.) What's the alternative? Becoming a waiter/waitress or
bartender? Spending huge amounts of time working a job you hate? Isn't that a
compromise? Then what? Because your life sucks, because you have this job you
hate, the little art you manage to produce begins to reflect your frustration
and unhappiness, which makes it all the more unsellable.
Don't compromise. Take a GENUINE interest in others. See it all as the cosmos
talking to you. Road signs. Assistance. Not to be followed blindly, but
definitly something to respectfully consider. Think about it. Respond. If you
don't agree, respond accordingly. Think about what does or does not come back.
Responsibility only ends when you either agree with the other and adjust
accordingly, or when nothing comes back.
Do that and you will be successful.
Tim Folzenlogen
Ponderable
>accordingly, or when nothing comes back.
A lot of my shows have had writings connected to them. Some of them had
writings hanging on the wall alongside the paintings.
This thread reminded me of a writing of mine which was a part of my first
gallery show in NYC. It is as follows:
THINKING DEEPLY
Me, I'm a seeker of truth. In a way, I have no pride, or, at least I'll say
that I am always delighted to find out that I am wrong. It is only at those
times that I can step forward, advance toward truth. There is so much that I do
not know.
This is not to say that I don't know where I stand. I have my platform. Nor am
I a timid person. I thrust it on everyone to the greatest degree the
relationship allows.
As I understand it, our responsibility in life is to interact. Interaction with
an open mind. Giving everything we have to offer, but always looking for new
ways to receive.
The "truth" is that which benefits the whole. When it is truly known, the whole
will live together in harmony. But for now, its secrets are scattered out, I
think, evenly distributed with each and every person holding his/her own share.
I think that a person's value is determined by the number of people, the degree
of diversity, with whom that person can freely interact. The person who draws
no lines, who has no boundaries; the person who can embrace the world: that is
the true man.
Tim Folzenlogen
mdeli
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>Once, while at the De Young in San Francisco, I stumbled into a wing that was
>showing a collection of Etienne-Louis Boullee originals. Wow, I had never
>heard of the fellow, and since that time I've never forgotten him.
You never heard of him because you are too busy with Modern Academic
Art. I recall Alison said she didn't know who Dore' was. However
whether she knows it or not I'm sure she has seen lots of his work.
The same goes for Bouguereau and Tamara (artists I mentioned here).
There are thousands of fine artists of this century and past who are
only seen by those who make an effort to look hard.
>You would have to have the
>cooperation of the press and the art rags, of course, but what a case you
>could make to promote the show.
>
The same should be done for lots of artists. Look at an artist
dictionary just in order to just get an idea of what's out there? I
bet there are thousands of other artists who would impress you and
most people.
The trouble stems from the fact that most museum curators are a bunch
of hacks who don't really know what's out there. One can get a vague
idea of this by looking at auction catalogs. Added to this is the fact
that people follow hype. If they are told its just fabulous they flock
to the show. That especially true with Modern Academic art.
Most people aren't really interested in art. I recall the Vermeer show
in D.C., packed. But how many people flock to see the Vermeers in D.C.
or NYC after the hype has blown over. The few who are really
interested.
I bet that if Cadmus or French were given a big show and got the same
amount of hype expended on that fumbleclotz Matisse, some people would
say what you said about Boullee.
Erik A. Mattila
> >I have a feeling that the problem may be that artists aren't interested
> >in philosophy, science, math, techology, or people. If art is devoid
> >of content, why should anybody be interested?
That's a strange thought. Most artists I've known are in fact interested in
philosophy, math, science etc. Maybe Tim's identification of "art school types"
is appropriate here, but look, avoiding academics it a 'student' problem, not an
'art problem.' It's just a coincedence that art curriculum is available to those
who are intellectually lazy, or carry some personal baggage that would cause them
to avoid some rigourous academic experiences like the plague. One of my favorite
classes to teach was drawing, especially 'fundamentals of drawings,' because there
is a lot of very explicit, straightfoward skill building content that can be
taught. Yet I had one class rebel against me mid-term, because they wanted to
just play instead of learn anything of substance. The complained to the Dean of
Faculty, who was a biologist who thought art was totally lacking substance as a
curriculum, and he caved into them and I had to stop teaching and permit them to
entertain themselves -- which basically amounted to failing to meet deadlines for
assignments. I guess I'm just saying that I wouldn't call 'art school types'
artists, since it is too broad a classification that includes students who are
just looking for the easy way out. On the other hand, faculty are always
concerned about filling seats to justify their course designs. If you design a
course that only attracts four or five students a semester, it won't be on the
catalog for long, regardless if it has been articulated or not. So a lot of
faculty end up being very permissive -- sometimes to an absurd degree. If you
want to learn, avoid the classes that the football team signs up for.
> On occasion, I've given talks at art schools. The above brings to mind a point
> I would always try to make.
>
> Most artists, especially the art school types who are still living this fantasy
> movie in their head (having had little contact with reality) feel they have no
> responsibility toward the general public. They see becoming concerned with
> public concerns as "selling out".
Movie? I reccommend viewing the film "The Moderns" (Alan Rudolph dir. 1988). A
little slow in plot, the film excells in playing out all the codes and icons of
modernism to the max. It's especially interenting to those who study
'modernism.' It gets really humorous, especially considering how what was
originally proposed as 'avant garde' has transfomed into kitsch. Definitely a
film created with the artist in mind. It almost has a documentary feel.
> They are fond of saying: "I refuse to prostitute (they always use that word) my
> work" (normally said while gazing upward shaking their hair out of their eyes).
We were discussing this on raf just before you started posting. I think we got it
down to a possible origin - Virginia Woolf. I was really interested in where this
metonymy came from. But you're right, it is one of the icons of modernism that
has survived the postmodern diaspora. (although now we can proudly declare, under
the postmodern banner, "I insist on prostituting my work!" There are even
Prostitute Unions now.)
Erik
Alison A Raimes
<emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>That's a strange thought. Most artists I've known are in fact interested in
>philosophy, math, science etc. Maybe Tim's identification of "art school types"
>is appropriate here, but look, avoiding academics it a 'student' problem, not an
>'art problem.'
It's yet another damaging generalisation. Maybe it doesn't happen so
much in the States, but in the UK the art schools are made up of over
thirty percent mature students. The combination makes up for a pretty
strong arena for dialogue and debate where each can feed off the
experiences of their fellow students. Of course at British Art schools
there is very little in the way of structured teaching at degree level.
The students are expected to have achieved a level of technical ability
and have formed a research programme prior to arrival, which will lead
to the final degree show.
At our art school there was no such thing as *one type*. There were over
a hundred students on our course, as there are on most British art
degrees, from different backgrounds, experiences, capabilities and
intellectual achievement. There were people with degrees in all sorts of
others subjects, many had previous careers. One of the best students I
came into contact with was a brilliant mathematician.
Its poses then the question as to what brings people to study art and
how having life's experiences may affect the reasons for studying it. I
think the answers to the idea of *prostituting your art* may well be
found in investigating that.
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Lauri Levanto
formulated McLandro's index. It is focused on how wide
span of people a person relates to.
An approximate is to count how often a
person says "I". Nixon used to begin with "Patty and I..."
while George Washington spoke something like four hours
without a reference to himself.
There has been lot of talk here in this NG about self expression
and motivation of artists. Erik likes to say that self expression
is a myth - and I have wondered how shallow a self is needed
for self expressionism. On the other hand the "art school type"
you refer insist on artistic freedom, to do what they want
and get paid for it.
There must be some sensible version of the Dutch
model - where an artist in order to get paid,
must deliver something too.
* * *
Thinking deeply sounds desirable. In visual arts a question is
unavoidable. How much of visual thinking one can translate to verbal
statements. This I believe to be main reason for
"lazy thinking" among artists. You can explain verbally the result of
your visual thinking, but hardly trace it back.
Thinking deeply means two things to me.
1. Thinking a lot. After some while I can see sloppiness in my works
here and there.
2. Thinking in a deeper level - free of ego-dependence.
here I mean deeper in physiological sense, without concepts,
with your animal part of brains.
Thanks for your provocative ideas
- lauri
jimmy adams
<ali...@see.signature.for.address> writes
>In article <3830B392...@tomatoweb.com>, Erik A. Mattila
><emat...@tomatoweb.com> writes
>
>>That's a strange thought. Most artists I've known are in fact interested in
>>philosophy, math, science etc. Maybe Tim's identification of "art school
>types"
>>is appropriate here, but look, avoiding academics it a 'student' problem, not
>an
>>'art problem.'
>
>It's yet another damaging generalisation.
Chaps, I tread here only on tippy-toes, quite prepared to be blown out
of the water. I just happen to have been today to an exhibition of
Chinese work, mostly Tang, some Han, all exquisite.
I then read in the newspaper about a leading sculptor (and teacher)
whose latest exhibition features half a broken plate stuck on a wall.
Is it possible that many artists are just so depressed by the quality
produced by their forebears that they give up? Perish the thought, but
as a mere spectator, I find it impossible not to ask the question.
Sorry.
--
jimmy adams
John Haber
>I have a feeling that the problem may be that artists aren't interested
>in philosophy, science, math, techology, or people.
Unlike most people, you mean? Sounds strange when one thinks of the
discussions here or the range of sophisticated ideas that get into art
history and art criticism. Pesonally, even before I met you guys, I
have to say I've found artists to be thinking about cool things while
the world goes about its business, including things like those. It
was artists who introduced me senior year to literary and
philosophical trends like Deconstruction and even the high-minded,
mathematical types in American philosophy like Quine and Rorty -- at a
time when the English department was stuck in New Criticism and
linguistics classes were dismissing Structuralism as a historical
curiosity on the way to Chomsky. (Well, maybe they have something.)
I wish I could say that the real world artists are isolated from is
the business world, but alas, that definitely ain't true no more.
Marilyn
have held in my hands a 2000 year old Inca bowl of exquisite craftsmanship and
design, and have never seen or felt an art object since to surpass this bowl. We
could be on the brink of a new high in the arts, who knows, it goes up and down,
and in spirals, not a straightforward progression. One could say the same for
civilization, which went into a downward spiral in Europe during WWII for example.
Marilyn
Ron Peterson
: Unlike most people, you mean? Sounds strange when one thinks of the
: discussions here or the range of sophisticated ideas that get into art
: history and art criticism. Pesonally, even before I met you guys, I
: have to say I've found artists to be thinking about cool things while
: the world goes about its business, including things like those. It
: was artists who introduced me senior year to literary and
: philosophical trends like Deconstruction and even the high-minded,
: mathematical types in American philosophy like Quine and Rorty -- at a
: time when the English department was stuck in New Criticism and
: linguistics classes were dismissing Structuralism as a historical
: curiosity on the way to Chomsky. (Well, maybe they have something.)
I jumped to a conclusion based on the popular press. I can see
that many artists have depth to their intellectual development
and I was basing my conclusions on my local environment and
coworkers that are artists.
Ron
Chris
Lauri Levanto wrote:
[....]
> There must be some sensible version of the Dutch
> model - where an artist in order to get paid,
> must deliver something too.
>
There already is - its called the free market :)
Cheers;
Chris
Alison A Raimes
<ji...@jradams.demon.co.uk> writes
>Chaps, I tread here only on tippy-toes, quite prepared to be blown out
>of the water. I just happen to have been today to an exhibition of
>Chinese work, mostly Tang, some Han, all exquisite.
>
>I then read in the newspaper about a leading sculptor (and teacher)
>whose latest exhibition features half a broken plate stuck on a wall.
>
>Is it possible that many artists are just so depressed by the quality
>produced by their forebears that they give up? Perish the thought, but
>as a mere spectator, I find it impossible not to ask the question.
>
>Sorry.
And quite right that you should ask the question, Jimmy - don't ever be
sorry. There may be no answers, of course. You will, for this exercise,
have to assume that artists are genuine and sincere in their work - if
that is ok with you.
We could then start to investigate what has happened to our expectations
and to our visual perceptions that have brought us to where art is
today. How have artists been affected by the external world and how has
the role of art changed, particularly in the West ? If you are as
sincere in your enquiry as the artist is in his work then your studies
would soon reveal that more and more artists seek to communicate through
the most simplest of visual means. It may be that in so doing they
demand more from the viewer than the customary acknowledgement of skill,
or it could be that they no longer feel they are able to communicate
anything at all.
Personally, I don't think it has anything to do with quality but more to
do with a change in what we seek through the visual experiences. For
instance, how many of those crowds visiting the Renaissance Florence at
the National Gallery do you think actually knew what they were looking
at or for, and how many do you think experienced anything other than the
awe of what artists used to be able to do and the feeling of having been
there - always a good one at tea parties. What exactly is the experience
of looking at an ancient piece of art ? is the experience aesthetic or
is it historical ? They are two very different experiences. In order to
appreciate a piece of ancient art, for instance, one must have a certain
amount of historical knowledge to be able to *read* it .. for want of a
better word.
My host was a very accomplished and successful New York figurative
painter who was working at the National Gallery for the week. His
frustration at seeing the crowds in the exhibition inspired my tongue-
in-cheek remark for the de-popularising of art. Most of those people, he
insisted, shouldn't be there - they were stopping artists, like himself,
from getting on with the learning process that those shows are for. I
don't necessarily agree with him but understood how he came to make the
remark. I likened it to me dashing off to see the England versus
Scotland match this evening when I have absolutely no interest in the
game itself, thereby taking away a ticket from an ardent supporter. How
annoying would that seem ?
When eventually we pushed ourselves forward enough to actually view some
of the works, within seconds it became obvious to me what the modern day
problem may be .... and of course I say this with a huge question mark:
Have we lost the attention to *detail* as a result of Modernism ? Our
world has become so engulfed in the increasing speed of everything - our
attention span and our focus on detail has diminished. Could it be that
we now try to take so much visual information into our daily lives that
we are saturated with imagery that an artist no longer feels his role is
to provide it ?
Recently I started to look for small works - lots of my own work is very
small. There is a show on at Flowers East Gallery in East London by
Trevor Sutton - called *Small Paintings*. Each approximately 39 cm
square they appeared to be minimalist field colour paints. On closer
scrutiny they showed a complex system of colours and brush textures with
bleeding edges and subtlety that may only have been recognised by a
trained artist. In their simplicity they spoke volumes.
In the next room were much larger images - the work of Jeffery Edwards
titled *The Whole Truth* - it consists of three characters who inhabit
an undefined yet tangible space in which their existence is confirmed by
their cast shadows, chance reflection or recognition of one another.
They aren't human figures - more like computer generated images which
could be recognised through their simple geometric, primary colour forms
as being *living beings*. The images portray a world of precision and
order, unlike that of a human, and in the relationship of the simplicity
and human like qualities were immensely humorous.
It may be, Jimmy, that rather than the artist being depressed because he
cannot imitate those who have gone before, he is searching, in a world
bombarded by technology and scientific rationality, for a way of making
the viewer stand still and ask more of the piece of art.
Best Regards,
Alison
ali...@raimes.demon.co.uk
http://www.raimes.demon.co.uk
Ponderable
did want to state that I, Ponderable, alias Tim Folzenlogen, did not say that
which Erik attributes to moi.
>Ponderable wrote:
> >I have a feeling that the problem may be that artists aren't interested
Ponderable
>On the other hand, faculty are always
>concerned about filling seats to justify their course designs. If you design
a
>course that only attracts four or five students a semester, it won't be on the
>catalog for long, regardless if it has been articulated or not.
It's interesting to me how this issue wearing different masks keeps arising
between you and I.
Few may be good, but not as a goal if the desire is to impact many (or change
the world, which has always been my goal).
Must there always be that trade off?
I don't think so.
Nature is true and substantial in every way, and yet elicites an incredibly
wide range of those with interest and support. I mean, how many see sunsets as
being ugly? "It's okay, but that red should lean a bit more toward purple."
I think the solution to the problem is being genuine and straight (not talking
down). If you have something to offer but can also look the other in the eye
as an equal having as much value as you, odds are you will always find a
willing audience to recieve.
Tim Folzenlogen
Erik A. Mattila
careful with my clipping and snipping. I was just to e-lazy to go back to the
post which you had responded to.
Erik
Erik A. Mattila
my clipping below speaks to some of the factors that will shape course design,
other than aesthetics or philosophies. I think in this case I meant a very
rigouous course in 'fundamental of drawing," which certainly could be designed in
a way that would demand much of the student, may not compete will with more
'entertaining courses.' (Experimental Drawing 101?) I think there are two major
components to teaching drawing - one the problem of hand/eye coordination (or
hand/mind's ey coordination) and two the ideological elements such as the various
perspective systems and modelling systems. It's easy to imagine (for me, at
least) that the numerous methods of teaching hand/eye coordination involve a lot
of 'doing' (like weight lifting, really) and the exercises are likely to be very
rote, redundant, and frankly boring for the student (especially in the context of
our modern lifestyles, which seems so dependant on devices of distraction). In
this sense curriculum design begins to resemble TV programming. TV producers
don't intentionally design mediocraty, but actually respond, via the genius of
polls and ratings and the interests of advertisers, to what is asked for by the
public at large. (Which caused guys like Orsen Welles and Edward R. Murrow to go
to congress to lobby for public television - or a 'niche' where programs that
weren't based on statistical mediocracy could exist).
I've personally been in both kinds of art programs, rigorous and entertaining.
Inevitably, the ones in which I acquired the most hard-core (and transferable)
knowledge were the ones I hated the most. Here's a funny aside. One design
insturctor once told me point blank that I didn't have what it takes. I couldn't
please him for the life of me. He was a German designer who had worked with
Ferdinand Porsche, and he went on an on that the excellence of that automobile was
the 'standard' that all design must aspire. Being young and impressionable, I
actually went out and bought a Porsche. Wow, what a car. A late 1957 A model,
which was the very last of the hand-builts. One day I saw him in the college
parking lot, however, and what was he drriving? A '56 Mercedes Gullwing, of
course! All my ideals were shattered. I was left with only car payments.
Erik
John Haber
>I've personally been in both kinds of art programs, rigorous and entertaining.
But we're here to entertain you. Isn't that enough? <grin>
Ponderable
* * *
>Thinking deeply sounds desirable. In visual arts a question is
>unavoidable. How much of visual thinking one can translate to verbal
>statements. This I believe to be main reason for
>"lazy thinking" among artists. You can explain verbally the result of
>your visual thinking, but hardly trace it back.
I don't understand what you mean by that. Trace what back to where?
>Thinking deeply means two things to me.
>1. Thinking a lot. After some while I can see sloppiness in my works
>here and there.
>2. Thinking in a deeper level - free of ego-dependence.
> here I mean deeper in physiological sense, without concepts,
> with your animal part of brains.
Again, I'm not sure what you are talking about. Animal part of the brain?
For me, "Thinking Deeply", and the place that writing came from, has to do with
a more evolved way of thinking; whereas "animal" brings to mind something
primal. (Unless you want to see animals as being more evolved than humans, and
a case for that could be made.)
I agree with the "free of ego dependence" part. I see ego, or self, as the car
we drive around in while here (existence as we know it). It's important in that
we must maintain it, keep it well oiled et al, in order to cruise around
easily. A damaged ego is like a car with problems. There are limitations as to
how far or fast one can travel in such a vehecle.
But we are not the car. We are everything. I mean, life is more than a car.
An individual life is like a frame in a long, long movie. But the purpose of
life is the movie, not the frame.
I'll post another writing of mine called "Chapter One" from my "Inside and
Outside (Ideal and Reality)" show. It realates to how I view this same issue.
Tim Folzenlogen
Ponderable
>life is the movie, not the frame.
>I'll post another writing of mine called "Chapter One" from my "Inside and
>Outside (Ideal and Reality)" show. It realates to how I view this same issue.
chapter one
When I was a little kid, maybe five, six years old, I started having spiritual
type experiences. Being a little kid, I didn't have any kind of structure of
thought, no baggage of concepts with which to measure, categorize or dismiss.
Little kids are like blank canvases on which you can paint any kind of picture.
So I had these experiences. Words cannot really describe, but they had to do
with the reality of eternity. I realized, I mean deeply, deeply understood,
that my physical life has a beginning and an end which only amount to a flicker
on the span of eternity. Like one frame in a long, long movie. What's more, I
realized that the only thing of importance, the purpose of life, is the movie.
Not the frame.
These experiences became the first marks, the foundation drawing, of the
painting which I am.
Recently my wife and I went to Arizona. Outside Tucson there is a theme park
called "The Old West" which is the recreation of a small, old, western town.
Many famous movies have been shot there.
So we woke up that morning, had breakfast at the hotel, got on the expressway,
parked the car outside and walked into another world. A small world inside of a
much greater world.
Inside the Old West there are many actors. They dress, talk, act as I imagine
people did in those parts long ago. There are staged gun fights, medicine
shows, a magic act, roping demonstrations. All the shops, sidewalks, signs,
furniture; everything is a recreation of another time and place. It's like, if
you try really hard, you could almost imagine that you are living one hundred
years ago in a small town in the Old West. Almost.
Almost but not really. Even while I'm standing there, Tex striding by with his
spurs jangling, scent of horses in the air; how can I forget that rent-a-car
sitting out there in the parking lot? Those waffles I ate for breakfast? New
York City? There is never really any question of which is reality.
That is about as close as I can get to describing my early life experiences and
the effect they had on how I view life. Relatively speaking, I have a hard time
taking the physical world too seriously. I can see it, I can feel it, I can
smell it, I live in it every day but still; I know what is outside. The
physical realm is just a tiny little world inside of something far greater.
I'm reminded of these people you see on TV who have seen a UFO. Yesterday, they
were just like everybody else. They themselves may have thought that people who
believed in UFO's were nuts. But today, everything they were before, went out
the window. They saw what they saw; they know what they know. It doesn't matter
what anybody else says or thinks. They will never, ever again be the same.
"INSIDE & OUTSIDE" (IDEAL & REALITY) BY TIM FOLZENLOGEN OCTOBER 1993
Nikolaus Maack
>>2. Thinking in a deeper level - free of ego-dependence.
>> here I mean deeper in physiological sense, without concepts,
>> with your animal part of brains.
Ponderable ponders:
>Again, I'm not sure what you are talking about. Animal part of the brain?
I'll try to explain it from my perspective. Who knows if Lauri will
agree or not.
There are two levels to our brains. Let's be classical and call the
levels "conscious" and "subconscious". There are two kinds of
thinking, in my experience, based on these two levels.
1) The kind where I sit down and say, "I am now going to logically
think this thing through, point by point, in a rational and sane way."
Conscious thinking.
2) The other kind of thinking is where I have this vague notion I
want to ponder, but can't possibly capture it in rational terms.
Instead of actively thinking about the subject at hand, it sits in the
back of my head and muddles its way on its own. Subconscious
thinking.
The way I can encourage subconscious thinking is by giving my brain a
chance to whirr all by itself. A friend of mine just sits and stares
into space and lets the ideas churn. Going on long walks, I find,
helps my brain figure out whatever the hell it wants.
For example, I wrote a novel, as of yet unpublished. Quite often I
would write and write and write and then CRUNCH, get stuck. What
next? I'd then go for a long walk, sort of thinking about the
problem, but also sort of not thinking about it. After an hour of
wandering, I'd come home, sit down, and start writing again. I have
no idea how I sorted through the CRUNCH, but I did.
You might call it "just taking a break," but I feel there's a definite
kind of thinking going on here.
In some cases, art can be highly irrational. I have a wire face
hanging in the garage, laced with plastic strips, dripping varnish on
the floor. I don't even know *why* I'm working on the thing. It's
just happening. In this case, it's pure subconscious thinking. It's
almost entirely outside my rational control.
Ever let your body choose what colours you're going to paint with, not
letting your brain make the choice? I do. And it works. And I don't
know why.
Sometimes letting your subconscious run the body, make some decisions,
is incredibly useful. However, I think it's important to temper your
irrational side with your rational side. If I gave my subconscious
complete control, it might choose to sculpt art out of my bowel
movements. While in this today's art world this art might receive
tremendous applause, it's not the direction in which I hope to go.
Nik
---
PSST! Wanna buy a postcard?
Original hand painted art, for cheap. See:
The Nik Maack Art Gallery
http://www.chat.carleton.ca/~mrtribe
Erik A. Mattila
ointment for you. My understanding is that psychology in the People's
Republic of China does not recognize the current European theories of the
unconscious, and disclaim, to some extent, its validity. Wow, this rocked me
when I first read it -- How could this be? How could there be no
'unconscious' mind as described by Freud, Jung and others?
But on the other hand, like a lot of science, phenomena is described by
models - either the plastic configurationsd that show what a molecule looks
like (but really doesn't - if you look at some of the scanning electron
microscope images we have today), or linguistic models. Think of the models
as metaphors for the actual phenomena, which restate the relationships
between the parts of the thing in nature. The model of the
conscious/unconconscious mind is just this. But is the model really an
accurate metaphor (and I think this is where the Chinese raise their
question)?
So when you get to this point, you need to propose an alternative model that
would still hold true next to the data gathered from years of collecting in
the clinic and surgery table. One such model would be that the so-called
'unconscious' is a term which described mental activity, from the purely
physiological to even some structural functions of routing certain stimuli,
bio-electric impulses, and so on to designated areas of the brain. The total
package is totally pre-symbolic. And within that package are various levels,
such as the deep brain, or 'lizard brain' spoken about by some researchers.
This material is then processed into a symbolic form, which constitutes
thought, and that which what we generally describe as 'consciousness.' This
implies that our total knowledge of the world is in fact, symbolic. If you
want to jump into this one, read Ernst Cassirer's "Philosophy of Symbolic
Forms," (all four or five volumes). (some of his ideas made me sweat and
feel groundless - terrifying at the time but now they are just intriguing
memories).
The implications of this model is that the chances of communicating with
one's unconsciousness is zilch. Any intelligibility is only possible once
the raw content is symbolized. When you remember your dream, you are
remembering it's rationalized form, which by the definitions of this model
would be a function of consciousness. Probably the great difference in what
goes on in the subsymbolic mind in sleeping and waking is the nature of the
stimuli received by the body. Ah, that Pizza made me dream about car
crashes.
Also, in this model, your Rx about clearing your mind (always an excellent
practice) would be something other that accessing your unconsciousness. It
would be akin to rebooting your computer, clearing away whatever bias is
inscribed on your ROM Stack.
In meditation, then, the object would be to stop thinking (rationalizing) and
experience pure being with no thoughts. It's pretty clear that this is the
agenda, at least by my reading of meditation practices. So meditation would
be the complete opposite of communicating with the unconscious mind. In some
sense mediation is the art of achieving the consciousness of a worm -- oh,
hell, I can't think that anymore. Science has discovered that our ungulate
sisters and brothers have very complex social lives - just like us. Even the
single cell will respond to pleasure/pain stimuli, so it is 'in the world'
with the rest of us.
Anyway, just some ideas about this topic.
Best,
Erik
Nikolaus Maack
will now ramble endlessly. Feel free to hide.
"Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@tomatoweb.com> wrote:
>My understanding is that psychology in the People's
>Republic of China does not recognize the current European theories of the
>unconscious, and disclaim, to some extent, its validity. Wow, this rocked me
>when I first read it -- How could this be? How could there be no
>'unconscious' mind as described by Freud, Jung and others?
Why does this matter? Is a model accurate only if everyone in the
world believes in it? I think it's more important to consider models
based on how useful they are. To an individual, to a society, and to
the world.
>Think of the models
>as metaphors for the actual phenomena, which restate the relationships
>between the parts of the thing in nature.
This is my stance when it comes the conscious subconscious idea. It's
a useful metaphor.
>But is the model really an
>accurate metaphor (and I think this is where the Chinese raise their
>question)?
I don't know if it matters -- on a personal level -- whether the
metaphor is accurate or not. Scientifically speaking, it might be an
important issue. They no longer find the model useful. Many people
tell me that the sub/conscious model doesn't describe the TRUE
structure of the brain.
But for me, personally, it is a useful model for understanding myself
and my world. Should I have to get rid of it because the Chinese and
some scientists don't like it, or say that it's inaccurate? Obviously
not. I think the model describes my perception of myself quite well.
So I keep the model, even if the Chinese tell me it is outdated.
When someone can present me with a new, equally useful model, I will
use it. But I don't perceive biology and my reptile brain when I walk
through the world. I experience reptile urges, which can be ascribed
to a place that -- for lack of a better term -- I'll call the
subconscious.
>One such model would be that the so-called
>'unconscious' is a term which described mental activity, from the purely
>physiological to even some structural functions of routing certain stimuli,
>bio-electric impulses, and so on to designated areas of the brain.
I think that this makes up a portion of the subconscious (or
unconscious), yes. It might even make up the entirety.
>The implications of this model is that the chances of communicating with
>one's unconsciousness is zilch.
Here, I disagree. Sure, the "subconscious" (even if we call it pure
biology) talks in non-symbolic form, which means that we have to try
to translate it and understand it in symbolic terms, when it doesn't
speak in such terms. It's the metaphorical equivalent of speaking
only English, and trying to understand someone who speaks only
Japanese. But even with such vastly different languages, it is
possible for communication to take place.
Freud talks about dreams, Freudian slips, and so-called "accidental"
behavior. He sees these things as messages from the subconscious.
Material that we are trying not to recognize, trying not to think
about, creeps out in these areas. How about a couple of blatant
examples?
1. I was once in an anthropology course where the teaching assistant
stared at an attractive student in the class, obviously aroused by the
guy. I can't explain how I knew this. It just seemed clear that she
thought the guy was hot. As she spoke, she tried to say the word
"organism". What came out of her mouth was "orgasm". She went on to
say this "accidentally" four or five more times.
2. I live in a house with several other people and while things are
good, I'm not entirely happy living here. Recently we had the kitchen
redone. The stove was covered with stuff the guy we hired was using
to retile the wall. When he left for lunch, I decided to cook my own
lunch. I cleared all the junk on the stove to one side, and turned on
a burner. The WRONG burner. I came back into the kitchen and
discovered that I'd started a fire. I quickly managed to put it out.
In my mind, I started this fire "subconsciously". I accidentally
turned on the wrong burner as a message to myself. A strong reminder
that I am not entirely happy where I live.
I can't think of a dream example off the top of my head. Which is
somewhat annoying. Anyhow...
Are these messages from the subconscious? Or are they moments when
our biological dinosaur, our lizard brain, momentarily takes control
and makes us do or say or dream something we don't ordinarily want to
do, say, or experience? Does it matter?
Freud also talked about speaking spontaneously. Lie back on the couch
and say whatever comes to mind, without censoring it. This is another
good way to communicate with the "subconscious".
(A brief aside of sorts: Humans aren't rational animals, they're
rationalizing animals. Sometimes our conscious just seems like a
convenient way of making up excuses for our reptile behavior.
"The reason I had to kill all those people and have sex with their
dead bodies was because my mother treated me poorly as a child.")
>When you remember your dream, you are
>remembering it's rationalized form, which by the definitions of this model
>would be a function of consciousness.
Even Freud admitted that a dream gets distorted in the telling.
People try to make the dream make more sense. That doesn't mean that
the subconscious material is entirely lost. Yes, something is missing
in the translation from non-symbolic to symbolic language, but not all
of it is gone. A dream can be worked with to get more data, more
information.
If you dream about dead kittens, and it upsets you, a shrink can use
this symbol to try to get more material out of your head. Why dead
kittens? Do you have any stories about dead kittens? What does a
kitten mean to you? What does death mean to you? Is this, possible,
about the death of innocence? Or do you simply hate cutesy kittens?
In this manner, using symbolic material, a shrink (or anybody) can try
to unearth material that is pre-symbolic. Maybe, if we're lucky, I
can use the dead kitten image to cause you to burst into hysterical
tears and let out some irrational pain you've had buried inside of
you. Maybe not.
>Probably the great difference in what
>goes on in the subsymbolic mind in sleeping and waking is the nature of the
>stimuli received by the body. Ah, that Pizza made me dream about car
>crashes.
I agree. One of the more interesting theories about dreams that I
have heard is that what we see is pure static in our heads, while we
sleep. (I don't entirely believe this, but anyway.) What's
interesting to me is if we perceive nothing but this static, it turns
into something of meaning. One theory of dreams, then, is that we
experience a "biological inkblot" while we sleep. Some random
stimulus is shown to us, and we come up with a story. Meaning.
But like all behavior that originates from something supposedly
random, we get some interesting patterns that reveal things about our
own behavior. The reason a shrink shows you an inkblot and asks what
it means is because the stimulus is meaningless. The meaning you see
in it represents your personal biases and issues and difficulties with
the world. (More access to subconscious, sub-rational material, using
symbolic methods.)
So even if dreams ARE purely random, they still have meaning for us,
because NOTHING we experience, is random. That is, we never PERCEIVE
anything as purely random. Our brains are pattern making machines,
and it's the patterns we perceive that make us so galdarned
fascinating. To me, anyway.
>Also, in this model, your Rx about clearing your mind (always an excellent
>practice) would be something other that accessing your unconsciousness. It
>would be akin to rebooting your computer, clearing away whatever bias is
>inscribed on your ROM Stack.
You could put it that way, and many do. Say I'm trying to remember a
phone number. I can't. I struggle and I struggle and it can't come
out. So I stop thinking about it. Then suddenly I remember the
number.
In the sub/conscious model, the subconscious got the info for me.
In the scientific model, my brain never actually stopped working
looking for that information. I gave up. My brain didn't. Using
those brightly coloured charts that show brain acticity whose name
I've forgotten, you can demonstrate this.
What's odd is that some use this to say the subconscious doesn't
exist. Except from a perceptual basis, *I*, the me, the conscious
guy, the rational bit, stopped looking for the info. My brain, my
biology, somthing not in my conscious control -- my subconscious? --
found the information.
Really, they both describe the same phenomena, using different terms.
It seems to me that the ideas are quite compatible.
>In meditation, then, the object would be to stop thinking (rationalizing) and
>experience pure being with no thoughts. It's pretty clear that this is the
>agenda, at least by my reading of meditation practices. So meditation would
>be the complete opposite of communicating with the unconscious mind.
Sort of. But maybe not. According to a friend I spoke to last night,
one of the stories about how the Buddha achieved enlightenment was he
meditated and stared at a wall. Suddenly, he saw the wall. Not a
mental representation of the wall, but the wall for what it actually
was. To use a scientific model, the wall in front of him went into
his eyes, and to his brain, without being altered or changed in any
way. He saw pure data, without bias.
This seems to be the goal of meditation, in my mind. It depends, of
course, on what culture you're talking about. Meditation has many
uses in many different places.
So yes, in a sense this is the complete elimination of the
subconscious. Or is it? If the subconscious is biology, then what
the Buddha has achieved in this story is a perfect balance and
understanding between mind and body, between consciousness and
subconsciousness.
What does any of this have to do with fine arts? Well... Maybe we
try to capture the perfect "wall" or the perfect "face" or the perfect
whatever each time we pick up a paint brush. The irony is that we
reach for the non-symbolic "truth" that lies underneath reality by
portraying it in the most perfect symbol that we can come up with.
I will now stop raving.
Nikolaus Maack
>But you might need to post your proof of the existence of the
>"unconscious" to substantiate MW's statement.
Many people argue that the subconscious doesn't exist. This is
because they've repressed the knowledge of their subconscious into the
subconscious. No, I'm just joking.
Proving the existence of the subconscious is TOUGH. The only strong
evidence I have is lucid dreaming.
Most of us can agree that whatever happens in a dream is confined to
the inside of our own skull. That is, whatever we see in a dream is
the equivalent to whatever we think inside our own head.
I have had dreams -- as have many others, and you can have them too,
if you try -- where I am completely conscious inside a dream. That
is, I'm me, entirely me, and I know I am dreaming. What is
interesting is being in such a state, I do not have complete control
of my dream. I can change things, summon people, and play with the
environment, but I can't control all of it.
So what is this place, inside of me, that isn't me? Is it pure
biology? But when I walk around in dream, knowing I'm dreaming, I
meet people. When I tell them, "Hey! You're just dream!" they tend
to get angry and say, "Maybe YOU are just dream!"
Who are these people, these dream characters? Are they also me? Are
they fragments of my own identity?
I would argue that these people, and the dream environment, can be
called part of me, but not part of my conscious mind. My
subconscious.
Not much of an argument, really, but it's the only hard evidence I've
got.
Ponderable
>Ever let your body choose what colours you're going to paint with, not
>letting your brain make the choice? I do. And it works. And I don't
>know why.
Painting from life or photos, I tend to paint the colors I see. Or maybe feel.
I don't experience this separation between conscious and unconscious as you
describe it, or maybe, in my case, they are closely entwined. Maybe what you
call unconscious, I'd refer to as my muse.
The earlier stages of my paintings are rather mechanical. I can do them in most
any kind of lighting, whether I'm tired or not.
But the magic of the piece is in the later stages. It's an experience of high
sensitivity. For that stage, I need perfect lighting, and it helps a lot if I'm
rested. That is when I work closely with my muse, or spiritual help, or
whatever you want to call it.
It's an experience of being "on" or something similar to what athelites
describe as being "in the zone". It's a feeling of supreme confidence, as if I
can do no wrong. An intimate conversation.
I also experience color as sound, like I'm writing a symphony. Or prose, like
I'm recording memories. A certain blue next to a certain red with orange and
green showing through is a melody; or perhaps a memory of a certain place, time
of day, and what the air smelled like.
Tim Folzenlogen
Nikolaus Maack
>Painting from life or photos, I tend to paint the colors I see. Or maybe feel.
To each their own taste. But you're wrong, and now I must have you
beaten up by art critic goons.
"Yuh don't wanna play wiff de colours? Yuh always stickin' to duh
stinkin' realism, 'n stuff? Mistuh Maack sent us ovuh to teach youse
some fink. Pick up dat paint brush, or I'se gonna be removin' yore
knee caps wiff dis pallette knife."
(I'm joking, of course. Please know that I'm joking.)
When I feel colours, they're wildly inappropriate. People have a
tendency to be orange and turquoise, based on my feelings. I sense
that your feelings don't usually twist into this direction.
>I don't experience this separation between conscious and unconscious as you
>describe it, or maybe, in my case, they are closely entwined. Maybe what you
>call unconscious, I'd refer to as my muse.
My muse is in my subconscious. Except when she's not. And it's a
she. Why? She just is a she. It's tradition, I guess.
People keep saying UNconscious instead of SUBconscious. In my
understanding of the world, UNconscious is what happens when you get
hit on the head with a hammer. SUBconscious is, to quote the band
They Might Be Giants -- "Every jumbled pile of person has a part of
them that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking
of." And "Where your eyes don't go a part of you is hovering. It's a
nightmare that you'll never be discovering."
Not that it matters what term you use, SUBconscious or UNconscious.
I'm just being finicky.
I feel that me and my subconscious are very close. It's just that I
have to keep an ear out for whatever it has to say. The subconscious
*is* me, but a part of me that tends to get ignored, if I forget to
pay attention.
>It's an experience of being "on" or something similar to what athelites
>describe as being "in the zone". It's a feeling of supreme confidence, as if I
>can do no wrong. An intimate conversation.
Yes. I love this part of art, and I know the feeling you're
describing. You can be there for what feels like seconds, and when
you come out of it, you realize it's next Thursday and that you're
starving to death.
What's interesting is to wonder who, exactly, you're having this
intimate conversation with? Your muse? (Your subconscious?)
Yourself?
jimmy adams
<ali...@see.signature.for.address> writes
That's my bete noire: the blank canvas titled "Untitled". But if the
artist feels that he is no longer able to communicate, why does he try?
A pianist who can no longer play does not sit on a concert platform in
front of a silent instrument for half an hour (not yet, anyway!)
>
>Personally, I don't think it has anything to do with quality but more to
>do with a change in what we seek through the visual experiences. For
>instance, how many of those crowds visiting the Renaissance Florence at
>the National Gallery do you think actually knew what they were looking
>at or for, and how many do you think experienced anything other than the
>awe of what artists used to be able to do and the feeling of having been
>there - always a good one at tea parties. What exactly is the experience
>of looking at an ancient piece of art ? is the experience aesthetic or
>is it historical ? They are two very different experiences. In order to
>appreciate a piece of ancient art, for instance, one must have a certain
>amount of historical knowledge to be able to *read* it .. for want of a
>better word.
W-e-l-l, I'd say yes and no to that, Alison. My prime reason is
aesthetic, which is why I go past acres of no doubt magnificent
Crucifixions at a fast trot. I am interested in knowing what sort of art
tribe x was producing in y b.c., but only appreciative if it appeals to
me aesthetically.
And the background is often not available, anyway. As far as I know,
Praxiteles' home life remains a closed book, but that does not harm his
reputation as possibly the finest sculptor of classic times. On the
other hand we do know a fair amount about the lives of the Renaissance
painters - does that add to our appreciation of their work? Difficult to
say, but I would have thought not.
>
>My host was a very accomplished and successful New York figurative
>painter who was working at the National Gallery for the week. His
>frustration at seeing the crowds in the exhibition inspired my tongue-
>in-cheek remark for the de-popularising of art. Most of those people, he
>insisted, shouldn't be there - they were stopping artists, like himself,
>from getting on with the learning process that those shows are for. I
>don't necessarily agree with him but understood how he came to make the
>remark.
It's a real problem, like the number of visitors to sights (or sites) of
great natural beauty - destroying them as they appreciate them. Keep the
masses in the kitchen is the only global solution.
> I likened it to me dashing off to see the England versus
>Scotland match this evening when I have absolutely no interest in the
>game itself, thereby taking away a ticket from an ardent supporter. How
>annoying would that seem ?
Try to keep blasphemy out of this, Alison.
>
>When eventually we pushed ourselves forward enough to actually view some
>of the works, within seconds it became obvious to me what the modern day
>problem may be .... and of course I say this with a huge question mark:
>Have we lost the attention to *detail* as a result of Modernism ? Our
>world has become so engulfed in the increasing speed of everything - our
>attention span and our focus on detail has diminished. Could it be that
>we now try to take so much visual information into our daily lives that
>we are saturated with imagery that an artist no longer feels his role is
>to provide it ?
You are better placed than I to answer this. Perhaps I could ask another
question: where are all the genre pictures of today? Why have we no
visual record of the dealing room, the call centre, the focus group, the
motor mechanic .... ?
>
>Recently I started to look for small works - lots of my own work is very
>small. There is a show on at Flowers East Gallery in East London by
>Trevor Sutton - called *Small Paintings*. Each approximately 39 cm
>square they appeared to be minimalist field colour paints. On closer
>scrutiny they showed a complex system of colours and brush textures with
>bleeding edges and subtlety that may only have been recognised by a
>trained artist. In their simplicity they spoke volumes.
>
>In the next room were much larger images - the work of Jeffery Edwards
>titled *The Whole Truth* - it consists of three characters who inhabit
>an undefined yet tangible space in which their existence is confirmed by
>their cast shadows, chance reflection or recognition of one another.
>They aren't human figures - more like computer generated images which
>could be recognised through their simple geometric, primary colour forms
>as being *living beings*. The images portray a world of precision and
>order, unlike that of a human, and in the relationship of the simplicity
>and human like qualities were immensely humorous.
>
>It may be, Jimmy, that rather than the artist being depressed because he
>cannot imitate those who have gone before, he is searching, in a world
>bombarded by technology and scientific rationality, for a way of making
>the viewer stand still and ask more of the piece of art.
>
I suspect capitalism to be the culprit, rather than science. I am
tempted to say: "If rich people are prepared to part with large sums of
money for dissected animals, why bother with creativity?"
Sorry.
--
jimmy adams
Johannes Kiessling
if not - it looks like somewhat is a bit backward...
The reasons are probably too many to treat on them in one go and
furthermore probably not understood yet as understanding this would open
a door to a new world.
However... let me suggest two little ideas which come to my mind:
a. we've had a historism in the 19th century and a lot of present day
art looks like a follow up on historical styles like Dada, Surrealism,
Cubism... anything. Some even looks like an intentional mixture of
styles. This is what any historism is about...
What if... we consider all the great developments from Impressionism
to Beuys as a development of "prototypes" and the time has come to
APPLY these and really find out what they are about. Like when I went
to school I believe out teachers really didn't know what cubism or
you name it were about. This has already improved...
So... everybody creates whatever he/she wants, referring to what he/she
wants...and MAYBE after a good while of applied art and eclectic
variations a new vista might open itself???
I have a feeling that mostly in music and literature it's similar.
Even science - in all it's phantastic results hardly produces anything
that hasn't basically been there in the first thrid of the century.
What we see is application and refinement. Even this computer was
already on the mind of Ada (Lord Byron's daughter). So....
b. Art from... say 1800 on or so (or from the French Revolution on)
was different from what went before. Before art was the advertising of
Church, State and the Rich. Artists were decorators of palaces.
But at some stage art developed much more into an intellectually
critical agent (e.g. Goya!!!) and this continued via Dadaism as far as
Beuys (the last artist?). Yes, even Impressionsism was an intellectually
critical style and not mere flowers. BUT... and this is my second point:
Especially in the sixties to the nineties artists have eventually
learned that society IGNORES the critic, the Intellectual. To mention
but one such sample: the global warming does NOT really interest anyone.
Even the Dutch couldn't care less (until the go under).
Politics have almost disappeared with rather powerless governments
and economics rules like a natural phenomenon which nobody can possibly
control (not even big business. They just follow the path theat opens
in front of them). The crash of the Red Empire proved the futility
of trying to create reality out of a social vision...
So... it looks like a. there is no point in saying anything and
b. there is nothing to say anyway.
The white canvas is quite adequate.
My two little ideas together:
It looks like art (and world) need time to ruminate on where we are...
where we come from and where we might be going (as Gauguin commented one
of his pics). And as there is an awful lot to consider... this might take
time...
A last thing:
In the old times from Leonardo to... whoevere...
it were the most intelligent and forward individuals who did art.
Today I suspect that these study computer science.
(The art colleges ar full of people who do art for lack brain power?)
So maybe... the future of art is in the computer????
etc. etc.
with my best regards to everyone,
Yo
In message <6$In4NAX3...@jradams.demon.co.uk>
jimmy adams <ji...@jradams.demon.co.uk> wrote:
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johannes Kiessling
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"yoy...@t-online.de" (read sometimes)
"yoy...@privat.circular.de" (read regularly)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
examples of my computer-art at:
http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/clamp/gallery/galry.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
examples of my pupils' work at:
http://www.hgoe.kuen.bw.schule.de/art/index.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Message created with !Messenger inside !Acornet on a
RiscPC2 with StrongArm processor running RiscOS 4.02
*****************************************************
Erik A. Mattila
Johannes Kiessling wrote:
> Yes, art looks somewhat "disembodied" a lot of times these days and
> if not - it looks like somewhat is a bit backward...
> The reasons are probably too many to treat on them in one go and
> furthermore probably not understood yet as understanding this would open
> a door to a new world.
> However... let me suggest two little ideas which come to my mind:
> a. we've had a historism in the 19th century and a lot of present day
> art looks like a follow up on historical styles like Dada, Surrealism,
> Cubism... anything. Some even looks like an intentional mixture of
> styles. This is what any historism is about...
> What if... we consider all the great developments from Impressionism
> to Beuys as a development of "prototypes" and the time has come to
> APPLY these and really find out what they are about. Like when I went
> to school I believe out teachers really didn't know what cubism or
> you name it were about. This has already improved...
Johannes, your idea is getting very close to Bürger's (Bürger, Peter. Theorie
der Avantgarde /, Peter Bürger. [9. Aufl.] / mit einem Nachwort zur 2. Aufl.
Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp, [1995?], c1974. 145). His idea was that the
various avant garde strategies - cubism, futurism, dada etc - quickly ehausted
all the possibilities for development, thus the proliferation is 'isms' we see
in the history books. So it may be a bit more than 'prototype' but on the
other hand there wasn't really that much material to develop beyond the
initial proposition.
You're betraying considerabe bias here (joking). Personally, I think that in
many of these discussions the term 'art' itself is somewhat misappropriated.
Early in the twentieth, I think it was Alfred North Whitehead who made a big
fuss about how (then) science looked at biological organisms, i.e. in
isolation, in a test tube, in a zoon - quite removed from it's original
context. Subsequently the disciplines associated with environmental sciences
came to be, and the object was returned to its context and its behavior was
studied thusly, giving us a better view of how life worked.
So why not apply the same sort of idea to art? What is the 'context' of a
work of art that we may encounter? If we are viewing a Ruebens in a museum
are we not also viewing a represention of its context. Not only the history
of the artists' time and his biography, but also we are seeing a frozen moment
in the history of museology itself, as well as the product of a lot of social
selection that led the Rueben's to occupy that particular territory on the
museum's wall, instead of some other painting. And importantly, the values of
authenticity and uniqueness are represented (and since Rueben's ran a painting
factory, these kinds of values are as seriously challenged as DuChamp's Mona
Lisa). To me it is an unimpeachable statement that the viewer takes all this
in, as well as the qualities of the work of art itself, even if the viewer is
not cognizant of what is going on. If one saw the same image on a cigarette
package, for example, it would mean something else entirely. Just getting
dressed and physically going to the art museum is part of the work of art. I
think we need to stop talking about the work of art as if it existed in a
sterile laboratory petrie dish, cut off from its cultural environment.
When you apply the same sort of thinking to computer art it can lead you to
some very interesting questions. For example, why do so many computer artists
insist on making computer art that mimics a painting? Why is commercial
software so popular that mimics various painting techniques -- watercolor,
impasto, pointilism, Van Gogh brushstrokes FX, and so on? There is no reason
that I can think of that a computer image should be confined to the rectangle
of easel painting, or even resemble an oil painting in anyway, unless it is
the artist's intent to create a representation of an easel painting. It's a
bit of a conundrum, in my estimation. No matter how good one gets of doing
this, the result is always fraudulent, so to speak. But the popularity of
this fraud (and I don't use the term 'fraud' necessarily iin a derogatory way)
is obvious, we only have to look at the bank accounts of the software
designers to bear this out. Push button art is 'in,' and probably has
seriously erroded the 'paint by numbers' market.
I think the challenge for digital artist is exactly that, escaping the stigma
of easel painting. Since I do a lot of digital art which doesn't make its
escape, I have to deal with this question often myself. What's going on?
When I think about being an'artist' or making a digital 'work of art'
automatically what comes to bear on the question is the old model, the
painting hanging on a gallery wall. Ah, ha. So we are engaged in
replication, which is not new or innovative considering the line of engravers,
photo-mechanical reproductions, film etc. that has preceded this practice.
For digital art to become a new thing, I think, the prerequsite is that we
abandon old ideas about art altogether. I find that very challenging, and I
confess that I can't imagine how it can be done, but...
Erik Mattila
Lauri.L.
just catching up a backlog of news.
ac...@freenet.carleton.ca (Nikolaus Maack) wrote:
> Lauri wrote:
> >>2. Thinking in a deeper level - free of ego-dependence.
> >> here I mean deeper in physiological sense, without concepts,
> >> with your animal part of brains.
>
> Ponderable ponders:
> >Again, I'm not sure what you are talking about. Animal part of the
brain?
>
> I'll try to explain it from my perspective. Who knows if Lauri will
> agree or not.
>
> There are two levels to our brains. Let's be classical and call the
> levels "conscious" and "subconscious". There are two kinds of
> thinking, in my experience, based on these two levels.
>
> 1) The kind where I sit down and say, "I am now going to logically
> think this thing through, point by point, in a rational and sane way."
> Conscious thinking.
>
> 2) The other kind of thinking is where I have this vague notion I
> want to ponder, but can't possibly capture it in rational terms.
> Instead of actively thinking about the subject at hand, it sits in the
> back of my head and muddles its way on its own. Subconscious
> thinking.
lauri: My sentence referred to some earlier discussion with Erik.
I do believe that most of our thinking happens below (behind?) the
verbal level. Words are not only tools for thinking, but also
results of a thought process. At this moment I'm thinking in a foreign
language, and I have to seek words. Think about them.
In visual work the artists -and me- think composition, color,texture.
I can try to explain what I achieved, but not what thoughts lead
to position that line just so. Of course it sometimes involves
conscious experimenting. These two levels of thinking are well
visble in chess players. A good player plans a few movements in advance,
calculates the positions, but he needs to think only a fraction
of the options. The unconscuious, unexplanable thinking selects
for him the lucrative alternatives for decision.
Nik:
> You might call it "just taking a break," but I feel there's a definite
> kind of thinking going on here.
lauri:
In the happy moments, when your writing flows, you do the same kind of
thinking simultaneously, behind the writing process.
Nik:
> Ever let your body choose what colours you're going to paint with, not
> letting your brain make the choice? I do. And it works. And I don't
> know why.
Tim Ponderable Folzenlogen:
>> I see ego, or self as a car we drive around...but we are not the car.
lauri:
I like this metaphor. Ego is a shell around us, something we want to
present to others and ourselves, but life, me, is undercovered inside.
-lauri
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