What Is Art?

[HoboFactory]

I went to the art museum today. Found an interesting mix of things, from ancient Asian sculptures to modern ones of aluminum, from paintings by Van Gogh to what was literally tatters of cardboard stuck to one another. It got me thinking, as to what art really is. Why is the work of those like Rembrandt given space in the same and attention in an art museum as as solid white piece of canvas that has several tears in it? One exhibit featured a hand-cart with several TV's stacked on top of one another, there were also a couple of ordinary battery-powered wall clocks handing from the TV's, and a VCR. Why is this art? Is it because someone who went to art school did it? Does it take 6 years of art school to pile a dozen burlap sacks into a corner and throw on a deep-sounding title? I didn't go to art college, but I can stack TV's and make piles of burlap sacks, so what is the difference? Any insights?

[Ravenous megin-sane]

art is creation. anything to provoke thought, i would say.

 

one of my teachers was telling me how there was this art show where the floor of the show room was on an angle, everyone thought that that was what the show was about but there was actually someone underneath the floor filming himself masturbate for a week. and that's art. why? because no one left without thinking either that's fantastic or fucked.

[HoboFactory]

See, I really find it hard to think of something as art if absolutely anyone can do it. When I look for art, I look for something created that makes me think about what is being expressed, and at the same time, marvel at the artist having mastered an ability, that allows said artist to express the thought or the feeling or what not in a way that most people can't. I think it should be a lot more than simply getting a reaction, because just about anything that isn't "ordinary" gets a reaction from people it certainly doesn't mean it's automatically art.

[Shiri]

I tend to agree with Meg. I think there're many kinds of art and you certainly don't have to go to art school in order to be an artist. Some people find art to be only realistic oil paintings and never give modern art the time of day. I think you can't fully define art which is one of its beauties for me. I realize I didn't really answer the question but this is a really interesting discussion.

[borntohula]

See, I really find it hard to think of something as art if absolutely anyone can do it.  When I look for art, I look for something created that makes me think about what is being expressed, and at the same time, marvel at the artist having mastered an ability, that allows said artist to express the thought or the feeling or what not in a way that most people can't.  I think it should be a lot more than simply getting a reaction, because just about anything that isn't "ordinary" gets a reaction from people it certainly doesn't mean it's automatically art.

while i understand what you're saying, i disagree with it on the basis that when you open up that inclusive/exclusive can of worms, i think you run into a lot of problems that make art more of an elitism than it needs to be. anyone can be creative. regardless of how they do it, anyone can be creative at something. art is simply the medium for that creativity.

 

people who are really into aesthetics would also argue that the purpose of art is to make something beautiful; art for art's sake. in that sense, it doesn't necessarily take a experienced photographer to accomplish that, to capture/frame (whatever language you want to use) something beautiful.

 

while i think that experience and knowledge of the medium itself will obviously help your chances of making something 'beautiful,' sometimes introducing someone's naivety to art and its rules and conventions shakes things up a bit and makes people think about the art form in a way they never had before.

Edited February 2, 2008 by borntohula

[heyrabbit]

HoboFactory: If you honestly want to know, I encourage you read "The Romantic Manifesto". It's actually my favorite book, because it explains art and the importance of it. No explanation of mine could explain it quite as well as what's in that book, but I'll do my best to summarize what art is, while paraphrasing the text.

 

 

Art is solely a human activity. Why? It's existence and significance to man lies in the fact that man is a conceptual being. What is a concept? A concept is "a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by a definition". (language). Concepts are what enable man to hold in his awareness much much more than he can perceive at a perceptual level. "Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts". When you view a movie, or a painting, or reaad a book - and if you like it - what is happening is that you are perceiving multiple abstractions at once, your values. If you body build, for example, you might experience the values discipline, strength, rationality, etc. The feeling you get is same when you body build as it would be when you listen to a special song, etc.

 

 

definition: "Art is a selective recreation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgements".

 

The purpose of art is literally to integrate the mind by allowing a person to experience his values directly. "By a selective re-creation, art isolates and integrates those aspects of reality which represent man's fundamental view of himself and of existence".

 

Everyone can identify that a song is happy or sad, but some may like it and some may not. Why? Because everyone has different values.

 

There really is not so big a separation between artists and non-artists. Really, there are those who get paid for it and those who don't. That's why I laugh when someone tells me they're an "artist". Welcome to humanity! Most people have some creativity in their lives, to whatever extent that may be. Any person who has designed a building is every bit the artist that Picasso was, except that they'd be better artists. For example, one of my best friend's as told me that he "isn't creative", yet this man goes to the gym every day and creates an awsome body, and it's the most important activity in his life. I view him as more of an artist than the moral degenerate, who lives in a dank basement somewhere, drawing a few circles on a white canvas, declairing it "art", then pricing it at 5 million dollars.

 

Art is one of the best, if not the best, indicators of a person's or culture's health. For example, notice the art of medieval times, the ugly, grotesque gargoyles and compare that to the that of hte renaissance, which depicted strong, powerful men and women. It is not a coincidence that Kurt Cobain's art was depressing, dark and mind-numbing. It's also not a coincidence that Matt Good is bipolar and his music is simple,depressing and his lyrics are evasive and shrill.

 

Since concepts are like a mathematical series of units, there is a distinct correlation between the math in art - in the measurements, in the rhythm of the music, in the color - and with the affect it has on a person's mood. What's the difference between a car alarm and Bach? If I sat you in a room and had you listen to a car alarm for 24 hours, your mind would literally disintegrate! If I had you listen to yankee doodle for the same length of time, you might be less affected. Why? Why is it that you'd likely be fine if I had you listen to Bach for a day?

 

If the math behind the music is too simple, your mind gets frustrated and you become anxious and depressed. If the math challenges the mind, if it requires problem solving, you will integrate and improve your mind. This is why idiots cannot perform concerto's by Rachmaninov. This is why psychologically unhealthy people enjoy simple art. The more confused a person is, the more confused their art looks.(blurry, evasive, scattered).

 

 

Art literally either integrates or disintegrates the mind and your exposure to it affects your life more than you probably know.

Edited February 2, 2008 by heyrabbit

[Some Random]

Art is solely a human activity.

nuh-uh! i saws me an elephant painting on tv once.

[Ravenous megin-sane]

i feel like i should argue a lot in this thread, seeing as i go to art school and would describe myself as some what of an artist, but i just don't have the will to read all this and argue ;)

[Shiri]

Hah, me neither Meg.

 

Though, I go to design school and that's different.

Edited February 2, 2008 by Designate

[HoboFactory]

while i understand what you're saying, i disagree with it on the basis that when you open up that inclusive/exclusive can of worms, i think you run into a lot of problems that make art more of an elitism than it needs to be. anyone can be creative. regardless of how they do it, anyone can be creative at something. art is simply the medium for that creativity.

 

people who are really into aesthetics would also argue that the purpose of art is to make something beautiful; art for art's sake. in that sense, it doesn't necessarily take a experienced photographer to accomplish that, to capture/frame (whatever language you want to use) something beautiful.

 

while i think that experience and knowledge of the medium itself will obviously help your chances of making something 'beautiful,' sometimes introducing someone's naivety to art and its rules and conventions shakes things up a bit and makes people think about the art form in a way they never had before.

Now I was afraid that someone would perceive my statement to be somewhat "elitist" in that it implies most people can't make art. That's not quite what I meant. On the whole, just about anyone can be an artist and make art, because anyone can develop a skill or talent, whether it's music, or painting, or photography, and then use those abilities to express whatever it is they want to express. And when such people do use such abilities to express what they express, it shows that their end result took effort, planning, that it's something they really put themselves into, something that really utilized their creativity. So when I see a stack of TV sets or a pile of burlap sacks or three fluorescent lamps attached end to end, I don't see that same effort or creativity. I see something that anyone can do in like 45 seconds without putting any real thought or effort into anything. The people who make such "art" are the true elitists, because such people, having been declared artists, think that all they do, regardless of how hollow and basic is art. They think, if they tear holes in a white canvas, it's art because they had six years of art school, if someone off the street were to do the same, they'd not call it art.

[Ravenous megin-sane]

it's not necessarily what it looks like that makes it art, it's what it means.

[shade]

Art isn't something yo go to school for

 

 

 

 

Edit: unless you are a hipster and proud of yourself and whatnot

Edited February 2, 2008 by shade

[Lauren]

when i see a piece of art that is kinda whack to me, i remember that they thought of it and created it, not me. they created it, so it's art and they thought of it, so it's special. and i didn't so it deserves gravity.

[borntohula]

it's not necessarily what it looks like that makes it art, it's what it means.

well, how is meaning derived, then? from the wall behind a painting? no, meaning is derived from the art itself, the method... the application of, or deviance from form. or in other words, how it looks.

 

hobo, i think a lot of what you're arguing heavily involves interpretation. maybe the artist did spend ten seconds on it, or maybe it only looks as though they spent ten seconds on it. how can you know? that's just what you've interpreted. i agree with you though to some extent. i mean, i went to the tate modern in london and there was a lot there that i thought was useless crap. particularly andy warhol's work. but i think at that point, it's clear that the issue i have with it is one of interpretation. as meg said earlier, art should elicit some response from you, whether you hate it or you love it. i think that rather than dismissing what you hate, it might be beneficial to explore what it is about that particular kind of art that you hate. consider this: if what you're saying is true, then the more time someone spends on something, the more likely it is that it will be good, or in your case, art. chinese democracy, anyone?

[Ravenous megin-sane]

well, how is meaning derived, then? from the wall behind a painting? no, meaning is derived from the art itself, the method... the application of, or deviance from form. or in other words, how it looks.

okay. you get an old tv set. and you set it in a glass box that is half full of red liquid.

there's nothing creative or different about how you fill the box with red liquid, but it's appears that the tv is drowning in blood.

 

what makes it art is that what the artist is trying to portray.

 

or in a painting for example... the fact that you painted the red background before the green foreground doesn't mean shit to who's looking at it. it's what you think when you see the entire thing. this is why art is a finished project, not a work in progress.

[borntohula]

okay. you get an old tv set. and you set it in a glass box that is half full of red liquid.

there's nothing creative or different about how you fill the box with red liquid, but it's appears that the tv is drowning in blood.

 

what makes it art is that what the artist is trying to portray.

 

or in a painting for example... the fact that you painted the red background before the green foreground doesn't mean shit to who's looking at it. it's what you think when you see the entire thing. this is why art is a finished project, not a work in progress.

how do you know what the artist intends? you can't. the meaning of a work of art is not simply restricted to artistic intention.

 

"what makes it art is that what the artist is trying to portray. "

 

exactly. how does one go about portraying something? if i painted you a picture, but refused to show it to you, would you be able to interpret it? of course not.

 

i'm not talking about brush strokes here or what was painted first. like in music, to use another example, i don't care about which instrument was recorded first. as you said, all that matters is the final product, because that's all we see/hear/experience. our interpretation of something is entirely based on what that something is; "it's what you think when you see the entire thing." the act of interpretation is inherently dependent on how that work of art is presented.

 

i think that much of creativity resides in the how one does something. shooting a photograph in black and white suggests one thing, while shooting the exact same picture in colour suggests something else. if i scream a song, that could mean one thing versus if i were to croon.

 

similarly, if i write two poems about love, and put one in a sonnet, and the other in a haiku, they still mean the same thing but are expressed in different ways. the content, or "meaning" of a work of art is not going to be original, you can cut that out of the equation right now. art, like language, is a rhetoric. it's not what you say, but how you say it that counts.

[HoboFactory]

well, how is meaning derived, then? from the wall behind a painting? no, meaning is derived from the art itself, the method... the application of, or deviance from form. or in other words, how it looks.

 

hobo, i think a lot of what you're arguing heavily involves interpretation. maybe the artist did spend ten seconds on it, or maybe it only looks as though they spent ten seconds on it. how can you know? that's just what you've interpreted. i agree with you though to some extent. i mean, i went to the tate modern in london and there was a lot there that i thought was useless crap. particularly andy warhol's work. but i think at that point, it's clear that the issue i have with it is one of interpretation. as meg said earlier, art should elicit some response from you, whether you hate it or you love it. i think that rather than dismissing what you hate, it might be beneficial to explore what it is about that particular kind of art that you hate. consider this: if what you're saying is true, then the more time someone spends on something, the more likely it is that it will be good, or in your case, art. chinese democracy, anyone?

But just because it gets a reaction doesn't make it good art. When anyone steps in dog crap, they generally react, and strongly, does that mean dogs crapping on the ground is art? I didn't say sheer time spent on a piece of work guaranteed it was good, but that also the effort, planning, and creativity made for better art. To me, a stack of TV sets demonstrates none of these things.

[shade]

it's not what you say, but how you say it that counts.

A combination of both imo

[borntohula]

A combination of both imo

yeah, the more i think about it, the more i agree. i just got a little carried away there, trying to not let form be discounted.

[Moonlight_Graham]

art is creation. anything to provoke thought, i would say.

Thats a very good, simple definition. I would add to it and say "anything to provoke thought or emotion."

[decomposinglight]

Have you guys ever seen the movie Running Fence? In the '70s a formally schooled artist Christo and his wife set up a MILES long fence across Sonoma and Marin counties in California. It made it to the ocean across rolling hills, and dipped into the water. The fence was made of large poles and cloth that ebbed and flowed with the wind, and shimmered with the sunlight. There was enormous consternation had by the people of the counties as many did not want it to go up and legal battles ensued. In the end, the judge didn't care that he take it down immediately because it was only a 2 week installation anyway. Through all of their trials, though, in town hall meetings and frantic workers setting it up, Christo said that all of them were involved in his art - they were the process.

 

Now, it doesn't seem like a lot of installations (tv sets, blocks of lard, whatever they may be) are really art, but to the artist they meant something. I think you shouldn't question whether or not it is art, because if it's art to them, you just have to accept it. Obviously there are other things besides installations which are considered not art because the artist isn't formally trained, they use spray paint (graffiti) to make paintings, etc., but to me.. it's all art. Anyone can make it if he has the idea and he has the willpower to carry it out.

 

Despite my broad view of art as "HUMAN EXPRESSION," I really don't like a lot of art. I myself draw and do some functional art (crafts), someday hoping to paint, but when I go to galleries only a few of the pieces really catch my eye and hold my attention. They all may be art, but I'm selective when it comes to which ART I like.

[Lauren]

christo and jeanne-claude are by far my favourite artists.

[bishopx]

Art is totally subjective. Renoir, Matisse, among others appeal to my tastes...but one man's maplethorpe is another man's velvet elvis.

[decomposinglight]

christo and jeanne-claude are by far my favourite artists.

THEY LOOK SO OLD NOW!