"What's really shocking about modern art?"
aest...@hotmail.com
sir_haxalot
petition demanding more representation for Modern Art either. That
would be like demanding that 'alternative' music needs more mainstream
airplay. If it got that, it wouldn't be 'alternative' to the
mainstream anymore, it would just be mainstream. There's something
liberating about working outside the lines.
aest...@hotmail.com wrote:
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/12/07/baturn07.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/12/07/ixartleft.html
chris
aest...@hotmail.com wrote:
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/12/07/baturn07.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/12/07/ixartleft.html
Rather a load of twaddle. Art - even the most aggressively contemporary
- has been safely swaddled since the late 1940's at least, when
universities realized they could pump money by the bucket-load out of
American ex-GI's; when anyone would do as instructor as sufficient
competent ones were hard to come by. By the time I got to university
('69) it was pretty apparent that academiahad that (and similar) scams
tuned to a fine degree, providing advanced babysitting for the children
of those ex-GI's. It's when art taught by the flamboyantly incompetent
who couldn't draw their way out of a paper bag became de riguer on most
campuses; the author is handing you a load if you believe that there
was any real sense of rebellion the art campuses at the time. Art
students - generally on the low end of the intellectual ladder to start
with - were far to engrossed in group hug activiites, like
"happenings", or group efforts at painting stripes - to understand the
real threats to individuality. In the "I'm ok, you're ok" universe
there's no need for rebellion anyway, since everyone (who doesn't
complain) passes anyway. One can't discount, of course, the effect of
old-fartism - the "things were so much more xxxx when I was young"
attitude - has on the author.
If one wants to go back a little further, it would be difficult to
argue that there was any truly dangerous art - at least in the States -
since before the Depression. FDR realized early on that the best way to
stifle criticism was to put the critics on the payroll, and most quite
happily agreed. It's not a new tactic, and was used to varying degress
pf effectiveness (for example) in mid 19th century France. FWIW, I was
at a meeting the other night of a local arts organization (nominally
geared to young/emerging artists) that is in fiscal trouble; it seems
the government tit is running dry. But the funny/sad thing was that
there was nary a word to how one might stand on one's own two feet.
Rebellion in those circumstances is no different than a toddler
throwing his toys.
CB
Thur
<aest...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134719995.9...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/12/07/baturn07.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/12/07/ixartleft.html
>
There are some interesting tones and assumptions about "modern art"
in his text.
Firstly, he does not trouble to identify modern art, and mixes with
contemporary art.
> ...rob modern art of its edge...<
Picasso was probably right to use the word modern without worrying
about contemporary, considering his age and experience.
However the idea that a style or an era necessarily needs such an "edge"
or it would become "flabby" is a clue.
> you couldn't help feeling that modern art, more than ever before, has
> become safe, approachable. comfy.<
The whole "modern" concept of art is here. Who is art for? Well it's for
people like Mark Hudson, and his "students", not for those who
might be considered buyers, or those who might have less of a need
to shock or stun their fellow men.
In other words, modern art is for adolescents of every age.
> I mention barricades, because modern art is, of course, bound up with
> heroic 19th-century notions of bohemianism and revolution<
I don't like to use words that are offensive, or can be used to stir
emotions without responsibility or reflection, but the word twaddle
seems appropriate here.
> Angst and anger, those great staples of the modern "artistic
> personality" were nowhere in sight<
Well that's the inevitable result of such a viewpoint.
If you ask "is it art", and immediately lampoon everyone who has the
courage to try to answer that, then why such great expectations for it?
>Deprived of the revolutionary impulse that has sustained it for most
>of the last century and more, art badly needs a new idea.<
I have a few.
How about art that is made to please both the artist and the
customer/viewer?
How about art that is about something other than the pathetic
meanderings of the artist's inner self, such as a commentary on
what is seen about us?
How about art that contains some indications in a visual form
that the buyer/viewer can understand, in other words, a
common visual language?
How about a demonstration of the artist's skills?
How about our art becoming a self confident expression of
our society, which of course we can all share in, the like of
which we have not seen for hundreds of years?
--
Thur
Mani Deli
>>Deprived of the revolutionary impulse that has sustained it for most
>>of the last century and more, art badly needs a new idea.<
>
Modern Academic Art has had new ideas. Too bad most of it contains
almost no skill to express them.
no skill, no art.
aest...@hotmail.com
Tom Stoppard
aest...@hotmail.com
simplicity... The other extreme is just as bad; you see it in a lot of
Modern works, where the concept is more important than the technique,
resulting in very poor craftsmanship.
George Carlson
aest...@hotmail.com
- I don't look for skill in art; I look for originality, surprise,
obsession, energy, experimentation, something visionary, and a
willingness to embarrass oneself in public. Skill has nothing to do
with technical proficiency; it has to do with being flexible and
creative. I'm interested in people who rethink skill, who redefine or
reimagine it: an engineer, say, who builds rockets from rocks.
Thur
<aest...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134987462.3...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
I can think of a number of works by other artists which
one might have claim to the descriptions given by the
critic, which I feel have more weight.
Try John Martin as an example.
> Skill has nothing to do with technical proficiency;...<
He complains of other critics doing the same kind of
things with words.
--
Thur
chris
Orwell had folks like this in mind when he developed his concept of
"newspeak" - degrading language to the point where powerful ideas can
no longer exist. But since it's just the village voice (one of the twin
towers of yuppified rebellion, the other being Rolling Stone) it's
laughable rather than scary....
CB
Mani Deli
>- Focusing totally on technique, you lose the essence and power of
>simplicity..
Focusing on anything you want but lacking technique you lose, period!
no skil, no art
Mani Deli
>In the following article, an art critic says:
>
>- I don't look for skill in art; I look for originality, surprise,
>obsession, energy, experimentation, something visionary, and a
>willingness to embarrass oneself in public. Skill has nothing to do
>with technical proficiency;
says who?
> it has to do with being flexible and
>creative. I'm interested in people who rethink skill, who redefine or
>reimagine it: an engineer, say, who builds rockets from rocks.
>"rockets from rocks," I think this guy is full of crap. He can't write clearly and spouts the usual Artspeak.
Mani Deli
>I am not so keen on Burchfield.
He can't draw.
>I can think of a number of works by other artists which
>one might have claim to the descriptions given by the
>critic, which I feel have more weight.
>Try John Martin as an example.
Even worse!
Thur
"Mani Deli" <ma...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:takeq1dgia0osobgi...@4ax.com...
Mani, it maybe your spectacles need renewing.
I believe you read :
John Marin [American Painter, 1870-1953]
But I posted
John Martin [British Painter, 1789-1854]
Try "The Seventh Plague of Egypt" for example:-
http://www.mfa.org/collections/search_art.asp?recview=true&id=33665&coll_keywords=Martin+John&coll_accession=&coll_name=&coll_artist=&coll_place=&coll_medium=&coll_culture=&coll_classification=&coll_credit=&coll_provenance=&coll_location=&coll_has_images=1&coll_on_view=&coll_sort=0&coll_sort_order=0&coll_package=0&coll_start=1
Or any of his grand scale, visionary works.
Forget the engravings, and other monotone works,
it's the full colour oils I refer to.
He was a friend and colleague of Turner.
--
Thur
Mani Deli
>Mani, it maybe your spectacles need renewing.
>I believe you read :
>John Marin [American Painter, 1870-1953]
Guess I did.
sir_haxalot
http://arthistory.about.com/cs/namespp/a/picasso.htm
"At the tender age of 14, Picasso passed the entrance exam to the
Barcelona School of Fine Arts - in just one day. " (rendering with
perspective was undoubtedly included). He was the first living artist
to have a show at the Louvre (at age 90, it wasn't an honor unearned).
Which is more likely, that all the curators associated with the Louvre,
with access to its massive collection of not just art but of art
history and provenance for hundreds of thousands of works; plus the
Barcelona School of Fine arts, are all incorrect about the significance
and technical quality of Picasso's work; or that a couple of people
whose evidence is limited to their own personal opinions are right, and
Picasso was a horrible artist from beginning to end. I'm gonna go with
the Louvre and the art school. Saying that modern art requires no
skill based on what realism is doing is comparing car repair to
computer repair, and saying that only computer repair requires skill
because it's more intricate. One is more time consuming and delicate,
but does that mean that the brute strength required to pull the 700-lb
engine out of a car is any less significant? Can no one else see that
they're different enough that you can't really compare like that?
Mani Deli
wrote:
>Ok, I'll drive it home again, since people keep begging for it.
>http://arthistory.about.com/cs/namespp/a/picasso.htm
>"At the tender age of 14, Picasso passed the entrance exam to the
>Barcelona School of Fine Arts - in just one day. "
Big Deal. Look at the drawing he did to graduate, yuck!
In fact the drawings from casts in the Picasso museum that supposedly
exhibit his academic skills are nothing but copies of Bargue's
lithographs. His early paintings were done by his father, who wasn't a
particularly good painter. Picasso was a third rate cartoonist whose
only originality is that he did that in large sizes in oil paint.
>> - Focusing totally on technique,
Who focuses totally on technique?
No technique, no nothing! Technique is the foundation which I'm sure
you lack.
No skill, no art
Mani Deli
wrote:
>You're sure I lack technique as a foundation,
>and yet once again you're
>dead wrong, I know the techniques that you covet most dearly, and yet I
>choose not to use them all the time. Does that mean I never use them?
>No.
>http://www.devinmoore.com/artwork/drawings/images/house_freehand1.jpg
Superb drawing. I'm sure even Fox has never seen better.
>That's a freehand drawing of a house, plen air.
I'm glad you pointed this out as I would never have known.
> That's right,
>freehand. No pencil outlines, nothing. Took me about 5 minutes. I'm
>sure you'll think I must be lying, and that's fine, I expected that you
>wouldn't believe it. I'm just giving you the facts. Fact is, I do
>know the techniques, I just choose to ignore them most of the time
>because to me they are tired, easy, and boring.
Funny, but I don't think you know much of anything.
>
>Yes skill, yes art.
Repeat this to yourself three times a day after meals.
sir_haxalot
won't be fueling the Mani brand insult machine anymore. I knew you
wouldn't have any comeback besides insults, that's why I deleted my
original posts. Yet you managed to sneak a few in anyhow. Thanks.
I'll be sure to reprint them when I have my career retrospective at the
Louvre. I'm sure you'd love to grace us all with a witty comeback for
that too, but save it for someone who cares.
Thur
"sir_haxalot" <devin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1135172731.6...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Once again, revel in your snide remarks against me for now, because I
> won't be fueling the Mani brand insult machine anymore. I knew you
> wouldn't have any comeback besides insults, that's why I deleted my
> original posts. Yet you managed to sneak a few in anyhow. Thanks.
> I'll be sure to reprint them when I have my career retrospective at the
> Louvre. I'm sure you'd love to grace us all with a witty comeback for
> that too, but save it for someone who cares.
>
You have committed a fundamental Internet error.
You have begun to take what you read on your screen
as being as real and personal as a letter.
There is no point in indulging in the provocations and
the backbiting and the personal jibes.
The only effective way to deal with them is silence.
The reasons we post and read here are many, but I suggest
that you first ask what it is you are after, and focus on that.
Example, if you merely wish, as some do, to contribute to
a sort of social club, not wishing to rub shoulders with strangers
and even stranger views, then select out those posters and threads
you require and delete the rest.
If someone posts insults or views you find irritating and plainly wrong,
then after finding that they cannot be persuaded otherwise, or that
they do not wish to engage in a fair argument, then ingore them.
You dont even need to tell them their posts are automatically deleted.
Remember always that the world would be a poorer place if
everyone shared the same views, the same values, and the same
personal space!
Have a Happy Holiday
--
Thur
Mani Deli
wrote:
>Once again, revel in your snide remarks against me for now, because I
>won't be fueling the Mani brand insult machine anymore. I knew you
>wouldn't have any comeback besides insults, that's why I deleted my
>original posts.
But your painting is a masterpiece and your perspective along with
your vast knowledge of the subject etc. etc.
> Yet you managed to sneak a few in anyhow. Thanks.
>I'll be sure to reprint them when I have my career retrospective at the
>Louvre.
Don't forget to save for the airfare.