# General > General Chat >  Poop, Art and Modernism

## Mutatis-Mutandis

Well, there was an interesting discussion going on about the contemporary art scene, and since it was ok'ed by Scher to continue the discussion (and it does deserve it's own thread--hopefully more will chime in), I made this thread. I thought the major players (Alex, Volya, stlukes, Clopin, etc.) might like to, also, because I found it quite interesting.

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## Anton Hermes

Art bad now!

Not like before!

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## Volya

_It's funny Volya, your attitude towards modern/abstract art seems pretty much exactly as mine was when I was in high school. I'd constantly argue how stupid a painting was if a little kid could do it (my most usual analogy at the time) and all that. No surprise, my ideas and opinions have changed quite vastly.
___________________

If a kid can do it, it doesn't require skill. Art SHOULD require skill to create. I don't really care if this lovely blue square they painted represents feeling sad, or crap like that. It doesn't look good, hence it ain't art.

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## Charles Darnay

I recently had a conversation with someone about this painting. ow, it is not "red square on white canvas" level of contemporary absurd, but it is not the most "skilled" painting, if we take a conservative definition.

The discussion turned from this painting to Jackson Pollock, and the idea was put forth that often comes with a discussion on Pollock.

Sometimes a work of art is the bi-product of the Art. That is, the real beauty of the work lies in its experience, in the creation - as if it were a piece of theatre - and therefore the finished product is like a snapshot of a stage production: looking at it does not give you the full extent of what it really is. You have to extrapolate from what you see what the experience may have been: and this itself is Art.

When I started to think about this concept (when I was introduced to it years ago) I started to really enjoy the idea of these contemporary absurdities. That being said, give mean an early Renaissance Florentine work or a PreRaphaelite painting any day!

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## Emil Miller

> I recently had a conversation with someone about this painting. ow, it is not "red square on white canvas" level of contemporary absurd, but it is not the most "skilled" painting, if we take a conservative definition.


You forgot to mention the name of the painting.

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## Clopin

> _It's funny Volya, your attitude towards modern/abstract art seems pretty much exactly as mine was when I was in high school. I'd constantly argue how stupid a painting was if a little kid could do it (my most usual analogy at the time) and all that. No surprise, my ideas and opinions have changed quite vastly.
> ___________________
> 
> If a kid can do it, it doesn't require skill. Art SHOULD require skill to create. I don't really care if this lovely blue square they painted represents feeling sad, or crap like that. It doesn't look good, hence it ain't art.


Who are you to define art? And guess what, your kid along with the vast majority of the human population CAN'T "do it". Yes, some examples of modern art are tiring, but expressionism and modern art are valid even if you think that you know everything at fifteen (I thought so too, and I didn't and I still don't).

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## Desolation

I'll admit freely that despite my longtime girlfriend, and all of my local friends, being artists/art students, and having been taken to dozens of galleries, museums, and openings over the last year or so, I don't really have the right eye for the visual arts. For whatever reason, no matter how hard I try, I can't connect to a painting the same way that I can to a piece of music or literature. Maybe I'm over-thinking it too much and trying to understand instead of just being swept away.

However, as a devout lover of all things abstract, avant-garde, and Modernist, I am more inclined to stand and stare at abstract works longer than I do the more classical material (unless they're paintings of angels - those really freaky Biblical angels that are covered with eyes and green fire, not the anthropic angels...I love those things). But, I remain a thorough philistine on the subject nonetheless.

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## Charles Darnay

> You forgot to mention the name of the painting.


Chevreuse II by Riopelle (1950s French Canadian)

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> _It's funny Volya, your attitude towards modern/abstract art seems pretty much exactly as mine was when I was in high school. I'd constantly argue how stupid a painting was if a little kid could do it (my most usual analogy at the time) and all that. No surprise, my ideas and opinions have changed quite vastly.
> ___________________
> 
> If a kid can do it, it doesn't require skill. Art SHOULD require skill to create. I don't really care if this lovely blue square they painted represents feeling sad, or crap like that. It doesn't look good, hence it ain't art.


Yes, but remember, it isn't art to _you_. 

I actually have come to think a lot of abstract art looks good. I like the above painting, for example. I like the chaotic colors and and all that. 

Just like the "a kid could do it" argument, one also will head a "Well, I could do that!" argument. The problem is you didn't do that--the artist did. The artist created something new and unique (in the broader definition of unique, as in one painting doesn't look exactly like any other). I like to ask those people who make such statements, "We'll, then why didn't you do it?" There's almost never an answer.

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## Emil Miller

> Chevreuse II by Riopelle (1950s French Canadian)


Thanks, it's an amazingly detailed painting. I agree that it has a lot more in it than anything by Paul Rothko, many of whose paintings I have seen in the Tate London gallery and consider to be nothing short of fraudulent daubs for those silly enough to pay ludicrous sums for a piece of charlatanry. 
This one, however, does the business.

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## Volya

Clopin: I am not arrogant enough to believe I know everything, you seem to be making some statements based on no fact whatsoever.

If I am being honest, I dislike (or rather, I'm not interested in) art in general. It doesn't bring up any feeling or emotion in me, be it a work by Van Gogh, or something modern. The reason I dislike modern art more so than others is because it requires little artistic talent to make. With something by Van Gogh or Monet, at least I can appreciate that it does require skill to paint something like that.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> Thanks, it's an amazingly detailed painting. I agree that it has a lot more in it than anything by Paul Rothko, many of whose paintings I have seen in the Tate London gallery and consider to be nothing short of fraudulent daubs for those silly enough to pay ludicrous sums for a piece of charlatanry. 
> This one, however, does the business.


Looks like an image from one of the first 3D video games.

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## Alexander III

I quite like Rothko and Pollock; I have no issue with modernism. It is rather the mass mentality of the current art-world which I object to, where aesthetics are seen as a derogatory influence and the "idea" is valued far above the "style".

I am a firm believer in art for arts sake, and art which is primarily driven by ideology or the need to shock or question so called values (which ironically enough have no longer been values since the 1960's yet the art world continues to assume that the average man is a 1950's caricature); idealogical art devoid of style and aesthetics is simply something which I find as devoid of interest as most soviet propaganda art. Though, while I am not a huge fan of nazi german painting, I have a fondness for the architecture and the film, namely Triumph of The Will. But that fondness rests purely upon aesthetic grounds.

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## Anton Hermes

> I agree that it has a lot more in it than anything by Paul Rothko, many of whose paintings I have seen in the Tate London gallery and consider to be nothing short of fraudulent daubs for those silly enough to pay ludicrous sums for a piece of charlatanry.


Yeah, Paul Rothko was a no-talent. But I always thought _Mark_ Rothko's painting was pretty cool:

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## Clopin

> Clopin: I am not arrogant enough to believe I know everything, you seem to be making some statements based on no fact whatsoever.
> 
> If I am being honest, I dislike (or rather, I'm not interested in) art in general. It doesn't bring up any feeling or emotion in me, be it a work by Van Gogh, or something modern. The reason I dislike modern art more so than others is because it requires little artistic talent to make. With something by Van Gogh or Monet, at least I can appreciate that it does require skill to paint something like that.


It requires technical skill to make modern art as well, yes, things like signing a urinal are stupid, but there's a lot of very beautiful expressionist, abstract or modern pieces. This is why I think that you're shooting your mouth off and making arrogant, know it all statements. Not because I hate you and want to make things up, but because you say things like "it doesn't look good it isn't art" and "modern art requires little artistic talent to make". 




> I quite like Rothko and Pollock; I have no issue with modernism. It is rather the mass mentality of the current art-world which I object to, where aesthetics are seen as a derogatory influence and the "idea" is valued far above the "style".


Yes but in fifty years nobody is going to care about the guy who got a gallery showing because he masturbated into some sock puppets dressed like Hitler... or something; whereas the real, the valuable and the genuinely interesting will be passed on.

Here's a Picasso. Could your child draw this? And I mean... come on Matisse what are you? Near sighted? I've never seen anything like this in the real world! He probably just couldn't draw realistically.

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## stlukesguild

If a kid can do it, it doesn't require skill. Art SHOULD require skill to create. I don't really care if this lovely blue square they painted represents feeling sad, or crap like that. It doesn't look good, hence it ain't art.

While I agree that visual art should be visually interesting... I would say "pleasing" but too many interpret this as suggesting only that art which deals with light, fluffy, happy themes... and so "interesting" will have to do for right now.

On the other hand... I would caution you with regard to the question of "skill" as well as employing the tired cliches about something a "child could do".

This, for example, was what Picasso could do at your age (15):



"Skill" is a relative term. It only becomes an issue when an artist lacks the ability to successfully achieve his or her goals. The medieval artists, for example, lacked the understanding of anatomy and physiology that the Classical Greeks and Romans took for granted. But then their goals did not include a celebration of the material world... including the human body. Their "skills" however, were quite adequate enough to simply convey the Biblical narratives...



... or to impress their audience with a sense of the spiritual:

http://paris.arounder.com/en/churche...apelle-01.html

I actually have come to think a lot of abstract art looks good.

I think that one step toward appreciating "abstract art" is to question just why it is that we should assume that a painting must represent the appearance of something. Music may be wholly "abstract"... and yet certainly not "meaningless":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKUzYJdQ_Mw

By the same token... most of those who balk at the very notion of "abstraction" in painting have no problem with abstraction in other visual art forms:







http://paris.arounder.com/en/churche...-interior.html

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## BienvenuJDC

This is exactly why I think that we should be very particular in giving public money (taxpayers) for art. Some art (if you can even call it art) is offensive to some (if not most). Now that isn't an easy issue to solve. How much money should be granted for art, where should it come from, and how should it be spent?

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## stlukesguild

The reason I dislike modern art more so than others is because it requires little artistic talent to make. With something by Van Gogh or Monet, at least I can appreciate that it does require skill to paint something like that.

While I find a lot of the Modern/Contemporary art promoted by certain cliques within the art world to be of little or no real merit... don't underestimate the abilities of contemporary artists as a whole:


-David M. Lenz


-Sean Beavers


Bo Bartlett


-Harry Holland


-Will Cotton


-Gerhard Richter


-Gottfried Helnwein

All of the above paintings are by living artists who are quite successful... and obviously quite skillful.

As for Abstract and Expressionist paintings... I doubt that you can be convinced of their merits... let alone the skill and effort needed to create such art on a high level unless you open yourself to the possibility that the ultimate goal of painting isn't to mimic visual reality.

This is exactly why I think that we should be very particular in giving public money (taxpayers) for art. Some art (if you can even call it art) is offensive to some (if not most). Now that isn't an easy issue to solve. How much money should be granted for art, where should it come from, and how should it be spent?

That's a complete non-issue continually raised by Conservatives. The National Endowment of the Arts has a $154 Million budget... in a nation of 300 million+. That comes to 50-cents per person. The majority of the funding goes toward supporting arts institutions (museums, dance companies, symphonies, theater companies, etc...) as well as initiatives in arts education such as programs funding museum visits or a trip to the orchestra for children living at or below the poverty level. There have been no grants given to individual contemporary artists for years. Most of the furor over the funding for this or that controversial artist has been inflated beyond all reality. For example, a community arts group may receive a grant for a couple thousand dollars from the NEA. At some time during the year one of the artists in an exhibition run by the same community arts group shows something controversial. This is blown up as an example of public money funding pornography and/or obscene art... as if the entire budget of the community arts group was from NEA funds. The result is that arts groups and institutions find themselves under the scrutiny of Conservative watchdogs and effectively censored if they take any government money... as if the small government investment gives the government veto power over the whole of the operations of such arts groups.

Rothko is OK... although the whole of Abstract Expressionism was grossly overrated... thanks largely to Clement Greenberg... as well as the US State Department that promoted the work (in spite of their hatred of it) as proof of the freedom and superiority of American art over Soviet Social Realism.

The problem with Rothko is that his paintings look ridiculous in reproduction and really must be seen in person... and ideally a grouping of several of the paintings. Seen under the right circumstances they take on a contemplative nature... almost like a Japanese Zen garden.

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## BienvenuJDC

> This is exactly why I think that we should be very particular in giving public money (taxpayers) for art. Some art (if you can even call it art) is offensive to some (if not most). Now that isn't an easy issue to solve. How much money should be granted for art, where should it come from, and how should it be spent?
> 
> That's a complete non-issue continually raised by Conservatives. The National Endowment of the Arts has a $154 Million budget... in a nation of 300 million+. That comes to 50-cents per person. The majority of the funding goes toward supporting arts institutions (museums, dance companies, symphonies, theater companies, etc...) as well as initiatives in arts education such as programs funding museum visits or a trip to the orchestra for children living at or below the poverty level. There have been no grants given to individual contemporary artists for years. Most of the furor over the funding for this or that controversial artist has been inflated beyond all reality. For example, a community arts group may receive a grant for a couple thousand dollars from the NEA. At some time during the year one of the artists in an exhibition run by the same community arts group shows something controversial. This is blown up as an example of public money funding pornography and/or obscene art... as if the entire budget of the community arts group was from NEA funds. The result is that arts groups and institutions find themselves under the scrutiny of Conservative watchdogs and effectively censored if they take any government money... as if the small government investment gives the government veto power over the whole of the operations of such arts groups.


It is NOT a non-issue. Those are legitimate questions. Your arrogance is showing again. During a time when people are suffering financially. I think it IS an issue to be considered. All I am saying is it is an issue to be "Considered".

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## stlukesguild

It is NOT a non-issue. Those are legitimate questions. Your arrogance is showing again. During a time when people are suffering financially. I think it IS an issue to be considered.

Then if you are so concerned about governmental waste while people are suffering, why focus on the minuscule budget of the NEA? Let's go after the real money... the sacred cow of Conservatism: the US Military budget... which stands at over a Trillion Dollars when one takes into consideration all the aspects of the Defense budget including the budget for the CIA, FBI, DEpartment of Homeland Security, etc... The Defense Department budget alone amounts to $680 Billion+... 19% of the entire US budget and 40% of the military spending of the entire planet.

Orphan Pip-I don't really get comparing Ligeti to contemporary art though. Ligeti is certainly not immediately accessible, but his music is complicated and definitely requires an expert understanding of musical theory to compose. And certain pieces, like "Lux Aeterna" and "Requiem," have even crossed over to popular culture (largely due to Kubrich). Though I don't usually voluntarily choose to listen to Ligeti.

Pip... I agree that Ligeti produced some legitimate music of real merit, including the _Lux Aeterna_... although like yourself, I rarely turn to him on a voluntary basis. But this is equally true of Stockhausen and even John Cage. I actually quite like some of Cage's music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExUosomc8Uc

But works like 4:33 were nothing more than pretentious mental Onanism.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> This is exactly why I think that we should be very particular in giving public money (taxpayers) for art. Some art (if you can even call it art) is offensive to some (if not most). Now that isn't an easy issue to solve. How much money should be granted for art, where should it come from, and how should it be spent?


Why was this even brought up? What's the relevance to the conversation? We're you purposefully trying to derail the conversation and get this thread closed?




> I think that one step toward appreciating "abstract art" is to question just why it is that we should assume that a painting must represent the appearance of something. Music may be wholly "abstract"... and yet certainly not "meaningless":


I've always liked some abstract art. I like the type of abstract art that's "legitimately" crafted--that actually employs techniques--shadowing, depth, shapes, etc. It's the let's-throw-paint-at-a-canvas stuff (a la Pollock) that has been harder for me to appreciate.

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## Clopin

> It is NOT a non-issue. Those are legitimate questions. Your arrogance is showing again. During a time when people are suffering financially. I think it IS an issue to be considered. All I am saying is it is an issue to be "Considered".


No, it really is. It happens in Canada too, these programs are targeted as wasteful government excess when in fact maintaining museums is a comparatively minuscule cost and one of the only examples of government spending that likely would not benefit from being turned more to privatization. Some museums that are important to the nations culture simply would not survive as for profit businesses. 

The military is obviously the king of waste in the U.S. But the massive, bloated, over regulated, egalitarian and obviously ineffective public school system could use a few tweaks. And here in Canada it looks like every adult who pays income tax is being billed about five hundred dollars a year to keep native reserves in place (native Americans here also receive one hundred thousand dollars from the government when they turn eighteen). 




> In terms of fiscal investments, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Health Canada and numerous other government departments and agencies are now spending more than $10 billion each year to fund programs directed to Aboriginal people living on and off reserve.


http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/110.../1100100016459

And both countries are spending too much on social security, welfare, unemployment, etc.

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## cacian

> Clopin: I am not arrogant enough to believe I know everything, you seem to be making some statements based on no fact whatsoever.
> 
> If I am being honest, I dislike (or rather, I'm not interested in) art in general. It doesn't bring up any feeling or emotion in me, be it a work by Van Gogh, or something modern. The reason I dislike modern art more so than others is because it requires little artistic talent to make. With something by Van Gogh or Monet, at least I can appreciate that it does require skill to paint something like that.


May I chip in I say that art is in the subject itself then its execution therein.
More often modern art sets to exhibit already existing subjects varying from bodies, carcasses to tined food and messy bedrooms/junks all thrown in randomly for a shock effect. I do not get it since this kind of stuff is alerady everywhere.

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## Volya

> May I chip in I say that art is in the subject itself then its execution therein.
> More often modern art sets to exhibit already existing subjects varying from bodies, carcasses to tined food and messy bedrooms/junks all thrown in randomly for a shock effect. I do not get it since this kind of stuff is alerady everywhere.


This ^
Never did I say that all modern art is crap. But how can you say that something like a cow carcass in a glass box (just to name one such example), is art.

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## Clopin

Because quality of representation or aesthetics isn't what makes art 'art'. It's like attempting to define music. If I want to shriek my thoughts on children's books into a tape recorder after fasting for a month and call that music then that's what it is. It may not be pleasing to the ear, it may not be a deep or thoughtful and it may not be of value to anyone but if I call it music than that's what it is. 

You're free to attribute whatever value you like to a work of art. Do you think it's completely banal and idiotic? Do you think signing a toilet and exhibiting it is a bit much? You're free to and a ton of people will agree with you, myself included.

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## Emil Miller

[QUOTE=Anton Hermes;1172005]Yeah, Paul Rothko was a no-talent. But I always thought _Mark_ Rothko's painting was pretty cool:

Apologies. I was looking at some Rothko paintings trying to find something that I might like and there were also some of Paul Klee and I conflated their names.

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## Clopin

> But works like 4:33 were nothing more than pretentious mental Onanism.


Hey don't knock 4:33! It was the first song I learned to play on the piano.

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## cacian

I think sometimes there is that element of 'repulsness' forcefully conveyed through what one calls art. 
I have my own idea of what artistic expressions are about and this is not one of them.
I see art as a shape /image/visual and not a feeling. I wish not to feel sorry sad or emotionally torn over somethinf I see but more impressed. Art that leaves a positive inspirational impression to motivate me to do take up art is what I consider art.

This leads me to think about exagerated modern food incorporated techniques and colours. Is one trying to paint a plate or feed the soul?

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## Emil Miller

> But works like 4:33 were nothing more than pretentious mental Onanism.



I have a suspicion that there's a missing Rothko painting called White on White waiting to be discovered.

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## Anton Hermes

> I was looking at some Rothko paintings trying to find something that I might like and there were also some of Paul Klee and I conflated their names.


It goes a long way toward demonstrating the lack of familiarity that posters here have for the modern art they dismiss in such a cavalier manner.

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## Emil Miller

> I goes a long way toward demonstrating the lack of familiarity that posters here have for the modern art they dismiss in such a cavalier manner.


That might well be the case but London has an extensive collection of modern art works and of those I have seen there have been few that have appealed.
But all is not lost, as I have already mentioned two that I do like within this thread.

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## Anton Hermes

> That might well be the case but London has an extensive collection of modern art works and of those I have seen there have been few that have appealed.
> But all is not lost, as I have already mentioned two that I do like within this thread.


Well, what "appeals" to you and what you "like" are just the tip of the iceberg, if that. There hasn't been much recognition hereabouts of the aesthetic mission of modern artists, or the philosophical basis of the art and music they produce. I've only heard modern artists accused of charlatanry, scatology, and presumption, or denigrated for their unwillingness to paint like DaVinci.

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## Emil Miller

> Well, what "appeals" to you and what you "like" are just the tip of the iceberg, if that. There hasn't been much recognition hereabouts of the aesthetic mission of modern artists, or the philosophical basis of the art and music they produce. I've only heard modern artists accused of charlatanry, scatology, and presumption, or denigrated for their unwillingness to paint like DaVinci.


Or perhaps their inability to paint like da Vinci.

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## Anton Hermes

> Or perhaps their inability to paint like da Vinci.


Or perhaps the irrelevance of comparisons to DaVinci.

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## stlukesguild

I have a suspicion that there's a missing Rothko painting called White on White waiting to be discovered.

Well... actually that was an early Robert Rauschenberg... although the whole Conceptual Art schtick... along these lines... goes back to the 19th century and the "salon jokes" in which certain smart-a**-es would enter paintings into the yearly salon exhibition such as a a blank canvas entitled _Anemic Girls Taking Communion in the Snow_. And then there was the Proto-Conceptual Artist who entered a blank canvas with a placard to be hung along-side which read along the lines of "The artist does not wish to impose his vision upon the viewer but rather hopes that the viewer will create his own image in his mind's eye." The whole concept of Cage's _4:33_ at least half a century before Cage came up with his daringly original idea.

Well, what "appeals" to you and what you "like" are just the tip of the iceberg, if that.

Certainly one must recognize that what we "like" is not inherently the same as what is "good" or "important"... and conversely what we "dislike" is not the same as a judgment of what is "no good" or "irrelevant." However, our personal opinions are largely all we have to go on when it comes to more recent art. The art of the past has been filtered through history so that the strongest work... that with the greatest continual relevance... survives. We may not personally like this of that "master" or "classic"... but we can objectively recognize why they have earned their reputation... we can see their impact and influence on subsequent artists, and we can see something of a collective opinion among those who have invested the most into the study and appreciation of the given art form, be it the "experts" (historians, critics, curators, and other academics), the subsequent artists, or the well-informed art audience. This is not the case when speaking of contemporary art... and we certainly cannot rely upon the "expert opinions" of curators, critics, collectors, museums, the press, etc... when there is as much nepotism as there is in the art market and as great a need to maintain the inflated reputations of artists in whom millions have been invested.

Ultimately it comes down to opinion... and all opinions are subjective... although some opinions are better than others.

There hasn't been much recognition hereabouts of the aesthetic mission of modern artists, or the philosophical basis of the art and music they produce.

Ah... the philosophical/theoretical/theological/aesthetic mission of the artists. Please do inform us as to just what these are. From my experience, no two artists share the same "mission"... not even among those clustered and categorized by later academics and critics as representing a movement with the idea of a common shared goal. There was a world of differences between Degas and Monet, Picasso and Braque, DeKooning and Rothko, Johns and Warhol, Kiefer and Baselitz. 

It should also be recognized that if a work of art fails to speak to the audience, in most cases they really couldn't care less to learn about the theoretical underpinnings of this work. Certainly, this is not always the fault of the artist. The audience must be willing to put forth a degree of effort... but the relationship between the artist and audience is a two-way relationship. A lot of contemporary artists are concerned only with entertaining that small group within the art world... the super-wealthy jaded elite that wheel and deal in "high end" art. There is a certain comic naïveté involved in artists ignoring the wants and needs and tastes of the larger audience... or even openly insulting and mocking these wants, needs, and taste... and then feigning a sense of shock and incomprehension when they are successful in wholly alienating this audience to such an extent that their work has become largely irrelevant within the larger culture.

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## Emil Miller

> Or perhaps the irrelevance of comparisons to DaVinci.


Which makes me wonder why you bothered to mention him.

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## mortalterror

The sculpture is even worse than the painting. Henry Moore, Giacometti, Koons, and Hirst, oh my!

I think part of the problem with art today is that artists would rather make something clever than something beautiful. I was looking at some paintings by Yue Minjun and Ron English the other day thinking that if only they had the imagination they could step beyond parody into doing something meaningful and new.

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## Anton Hermes

> Ah... the philosophical/theoretical/theological/aesthetic mission of the artists. Please do inform us as to just what these are. From my experience, no two artists share the same "mission"... not even among those clustered and categorized by later academics and critics as representing a movement with the idea of a common shared goal. There was a world of differences between Degas and Monet, Picasso and Braque, DeKooning and Rothko, Johns and Warhol, Kiefer and Baselitz.


I never said all modern artists share the same mission. In fact, it's the haters here who were using generalizations about modern art to substitute for a familiarity with individual artists or an understanding of their aims. The only name I remember seeing was Rothko, and he was dismissed as a charlatan.

And if I remember correctly, you posted links to a bunch of YouTube videos of modern compositions you dislike. Were you trying to be fair to the varied artistic aims of the composers when you used the term _warped vision_?




> A lot of contemporary artists are concerned only with entertaining that small group within the art world... the super-wealthy jaded elite that wheel and deal in "high end" art. There is a certain comic naïveté involved in artists ignoring the wants and needs and tastes of the larger audience... or even openly insulting and mocking these wants, needs, and taste... and then feigning a sense of shock and incomprehension when they are successful in wholly alienating this audience to such an extent that their work has become largely irrelevant within the larger culture.


Again, this seems like alarmist fantasy, focusing on personality issues rather than artistic values. All these unnamed contemporary artists are charlatans, hoaxers, and they hate the public? Wealthy buyers, regardless of their taste, haven't always named the tune in the art world?

I've been a fan of contemporary art, music, and literature my entire life. I also love the classics and the Old Masters, but modern art is its own phenomenon. As in any loosely-defined group of artists, there are some whose work I don't get. But I could name plenty of modern and contemporary artists, composers, and writers whose work I'll always cherish for its wit, humanism, erudition, and originality: the music of Ralph Shapey, Xenakis, and Elliott Carter; the painting of J.B. Yeats, Magritte, and Klimt; the sculpture of Giacometti; the literature of Joyce, Beckett, and Woolf.

It's a free world, so I guess you're entitled to hate on contemporary artists and characterize them as frauds and fools if that's what floats your boat. You're certainly not the first people who've refused to be fair-minded and patient with art that's unfamiliar or different.

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## JBI

It's rare to meet a truly talented artist who paints for the money only - that in itself is something rare, and I doubt many artists would have gotten into the field if money, a very hard thing to earn as an artist, was the objective.

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## Alexander III

> But I could name plenty of modern and contemporary artists, composers, and writers whose work I'll always cherish for its wit, humanism, erudition, and originality: the music of Ralph Shapey, Xenakis, and Elliott Carter; the painting of J.B. Yeats, Magritte, and Klimt; the sculpture of Giacometti; the literature of Joyce, Beckett, and Woolf.


How is that modern, most of those guys were modernists and are dead now. By modern art I am quite sure everyone was referring to contemporary art, as in artists in their 20's, 30's 40's right now.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> Because quality of representation or aesthetics isn't what makes art 'art'.


Yeah, but it does play a large role in what makes art good. 



> Well, what "appeals" to you and what you "like" are just the tip of the iceberg, if that. There hasn't been much recognition hereabouts of the aesthetic mission of modern artists, or the philosophical basis of the art and music they produce. I've only heard modern artists accused of charlatanry, scatology, and presumption, or denigrated for their unwillingness to paint like DaVinci.


Well, all you've done, as far as I can tell, is ***** about people *****ing about modern art, rather than actually defend it in some substantial way. 



> How is that modern, most of those guys were modernists and are dead now. By modern art I am quite sure everyone was referring to contemporary art, as in artists in their 20's, 30's 40's right now.


It would be quite funny if his whole argument was made because he thought we were bashing Modernism (not the capital 'm'), rather than modern art.

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## Clopin

> Yeah, but it does play a large role in what makes art good.


Well it's certainly what I like as well so I can't disagree with this.

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## stlukesguild

The sculpture is even worse than the painting. Henry Moore, Giacometti, Koons, and Hirst, oh my!

Well... as I've suggested on more than one occasion... all opinions are subjective... but some opinions are better than others... and yours I would deem to be notoriously bad at times. I cannot even begin to imagine placing Henri Moore and Giacometti in the same realm as Koons and Hirst. 

I think part of the problem with art today is that artists would rather make something clever than something beautiful. I was looking at some paintings by Yue Minjun and Ron English the other day thinking that if only they had the imagination they could step beyond parody into doing something meaningful and new.

Both certainly have some impressive technical skills... but I would agree that much of what they achieve is little more than garish kitsch. I think English has hit on something sow and then... perhaps when the target of his parody or criticism is worthy of consideration. But then I don't imagine that parody and satire are beneath the realm of "serious" art.

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## stlukesguild

Again, this seems like alarmist fantasy, focusing on personality issues rather than artistic values... 

My "fantasy", as you call it, is based upon my experience working in the art world, following the arts in the press, owning and operating an art gallery, and frequently visiting galleries and museums. One would need to be blind not to recognize the decline in the quality over the past half century of the art presented in the largest galleries. One would need to be largely illiterate or ignorant not to recognize the decline in the quality of writing and criticism in the major art press... and naive not to realize the nepotism of the system that is responsible for this decline.

Certainly, this decline is not universal. There are many artists who have put forth the effort to gain the knowledge and skills they desire in spite of the anemic arts education offered by many college and university arts programs. Many have suggested that the opening of the Musée d'Orsay represented a turning point for those challenging the traditional narrative of Modernism. Whereas the collection of late 19th/early 20th century art as housed in the Louvre was greatly limited in scale, the vast space of the Musée d'Orsay allowed for the exhibition of far more work. This placed the works by the artists long considered as central to the narrative of Modernism within a larger context. Manet and Degas and Van Gogh were now seen along side of Bouguereau, Alma-Tadema, Alexandre Cabanel, Gustave Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes, etc... Many began to question just why these old academics had for so long been passed off as horrible purveyors of garbage. A shift toward traditional painting skills and training... spoken of as "New Old Masterism" has offered a challenge to the hegemony of Modernism/Post-Modernism.

All these unnamed contemporary artists are charlatans, hoaxers, and they hate the public? Wealthy buyers, regardless of their taste, haven't always named the tune in the art world?

Do you honestly believe that Jeff Koons, Mark Kostabi, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, etc... are the least bit concerned with the opinions of the larger audience? Thanks to the increase in literacy and the percentage of the population who has benefited from a post-secondary education, the arts are more accessible to a broad audience than they ever were. This was further impacted by reproductions and mass-production. As a result... for better or worse... it is the larger interested audience as a whole who are of the greatest importance in literature, music, and film. Walter Benjamin theorized that mechanical reproduction and mass production would undermine the "sacred aura" of the art object so that what we might experience and value the work of art for the art... and not for the cult of personality nor the financial value. But Benjamin was wholly off the mark. The traditional visual art forms... painting and sculpture... have not benefited as a result of the age of mechanical reproduction. Painting and sculpture remain extreme luxury objects... and as their prices reach into the stratosphere, they have become increasingly inaccessible except to the very wealthy... or that which the very wealthy dictate that we should see in galleries and museums.

Certainly, painting and sculpture may always have been luxury items... and they have long been a means of differentiating the wealthy collector from the rest of the bourgeois. As the bourgeois... the middle class... has grown increasingly educated... and interested in art... certain wealthy collectors have sought out works of art that are increasingly shocking and offensive... as a means of separating themselves from the educated "poseurs". Manet and Picasso and Matisse may have shocked the middle-class for a short period of time... but this was never an intentional goal... just the result of an unfamiliar visual vocabulary. The entire goal of artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin is shock... shock which is embraced by jaded collectors such as Charles Saatchi. 

I've been a fan of contemporary art, music, and literature my entire life. I also love the classics and the Old Masters, but modern art is its own phenomenon. As in any loosely-defined group of artists, there are some whose work I don't get. But I could name plenty of modern and contemporary artists, composers, and writers whose work I'll always cherish for its wit, humanism, erudition, and originality: the music of Ralph Shapey, Xenakis, and Elliott Carter; the painting of J.B. Yeats, Magritte, and Klimt; the sculpture of Giacometti; the literature of Joyce, Beckett, and Woolf.

Now who's fooling who? Not a single one of the artists/writers/composers you mention here are in any way "contemporary". many don't even consider Klimt to have been part of Modernism and almost everybody else... except Ralph Shapey... who I will admit I was unfamiliar with... achieved most of their major works at least 50 years ago... although Carter is still alive... and something like 103. 

Anne Gale, Chuck Close, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Lucian Freud, Jenny Saville, Odd Nerdrum, Eric Fischl, Antonio Lopez Garcia, David Bates, John Bellany, Cecily Brown, John Curin, Judith Schaechter, Sean Scully, Robert Kelly, Mark Grotjahn, Pat Lipski, Leonardo Drew... these are contemporary artists.

Philip Glass, valentin Silvestrov, Arvo Part, Osvaldo Golijov, James MacMillan, John Adams, Per Nørgård, Jake Heggie, Joseph Schwantner, Pēteris Vasks, Tristan Murail, Daniel Catán, Arturo Márquez, Takashi Yoshimatsu, Pascal Dusapin, Peter Lieberson, and David Lang... these are contemporary composers. 

It's a free world, so I guess you're entitled to hate on contemporary artists and characterize them as frauds and fools if that's what floats your boat. You're certainly not the first people who've refused to be fair-minded and patient with art that's unfamiliar or different.

The most brilliant defense of every novelty in art must surely be the argument which suggests that all art which is new and daring and unfamiliar in initially unpopular. It is pretty much a Teflon shield. If a work of art is popular with the audience... well there you have it. There's no need to justify or defend it. If, however, the work is unpopular with the audience... well then this is simply proof that the work is truly new and daring and the audience are but morons who simply don't get it. 

But how do we explain the fact that while Wagner or Berlioz may have seemed shocking or outrageous at first, they were rapidly assimilated... and yet Schoenberg and Xenakis? We are looking at music that is 50... even 100 years old... and it still fails to resonate with a vast majority of the audience... and not merely with the audience as a whole... the audience who loves Lady Gaga and Katy Perry... but even with the audience who loves classical music... who embrace Rachmaninoff, and Richard Strauss, and Stravinsky, and Bartok, and Shostakovitch? How long do you convince yourself that the problem lies wholly with the audience and that the artist in his or her ivory tower need not have the least concerns for this audience?

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## Anton Hermes

Well, since people have mentioned Hirst, I'll go on record as defending him. I'm not impressed with his paintings, but his sculptures explore our isolation from the reality of death in a fascinating way. There are insects gorging on dead flesh or sugar, then dying; or the infamous carcasses in formaldehyde.



Hirst's diamond-studded skull explores the same territory, the unreality of death. And its title, _For the Love of God_, makes you wonder whether there's not another facet to this besides profit.



_All artworks ---and art altogether--- are enigmas; since antiquity this has been an irritation to the theory of art._ -Theodor Adorno

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## JCamilo

The problem of the carcass is that discuss the material used to produce an artwork is ridiculous. Stone, meat, bones, etc. Does not matter. It is transformed and it is no longer what was in nature. 

Anyways, reggarding Mortal, the cleaver (if they consider it beauty, why not) vs. the beauty... I think trully pop art still goes for very traditional versions of beauty. Hollywood movies, comic books, videogames... they do have some classical realistic obssession with beauty and physical perfection. Well, i would say the aesthetical of porn industry hardly forgot it. It is more the museum galeries who turned this way, which is funny, as the whole cleaver message of protest and originality started as a way to contest the traditional view in the museums. 

The problem is less about the artists. More about the philosophy (you know that thing nobody cares in schools, which are less vallued than the capacity of scientists to reproduce each other on the self-gloating for a method their calculators cannot came with). Nobody thinks. So the buffons are cleaver.

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## Clopin

> The problem of the carcass is that discuss the material used to produce an artwork is ridiculous. Stone, meat, bones, etc. Does not matter. It is transformed and it is no longer what was in nature. 
> 
> Anyways, reggarding Mortal, the cleaver (if they consider it beauty, why not) vs. the beauty... I think trully pop art still goes for very traditional versions of beauty. Hollywood movies, comic books, videogames... they do have some classical realistic obssession with beauty and physical perfection. Well, i would say the aesthetical of porn industry hardly forgot it. It is more the museum galeries who turned this way, which is funny, as the whole cleaver message of protest and originality started as a way to contest the traditional view in the museums. 
> 
> The problem is less about the artists. More about the philosophy (you know that thing nobody cares in schools, which are less vallued than the capacity of scientists to reproduce each other on the self-gloating for a method their calculators cannot came with). Nobody thinks. So the buffons are cleaver.


What is this, I don't even...

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

I guess Anton is another of the "Oh, I've just been shown to be completely wrong? I'll just ignore those posts" members we seem so abundant of late here on LitNet.

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## mortalterror

> It's rare to meet a truly talented artist who paints for the money only - that in itself is something rare, and I doubt many artists would have gotten into the field if money, a very hard thing to earn as an artist, was the objective.


I don't think that the talented artists I mentioned such as Ron English are in their profession strictly for the money, although I won't discount that option or assume that it plays no role in their work. Didn't Samuel Johnson write for the money, and didn't Faulkner write short stories for the money? I could forgive an excellent artist making substandard art to make a living, and I wouldn't begrudge them the roof over their head or the bread in their mouths if they delivered the goods at the end of the day. Orson Welles acted in some bad movies and wine commercials to finance his masterpieces like Othello. Guillermo del Toro made Pan's Labyrinth in between Hellboy and Hellboy II.

What I think the problem is in a lot of cases isn't the money, it's the philosophy as JCamillo suggested. We got some wacky aesthetics and theories of art that were enshrined and taught in schools for generations and our artists are being ruined in the cradle. In short, they are talented students with poor teachers. They grow up like crooked trees and for every personal insight, every thing they get right, they've learned some awful mannerism in the schools. Which doesn't mean that the academies are all to blame or that they only teach bunk. They teach good habits too, but it's a mixed bag at this point, and societal pressures are just as prone to push an artist in the wrong direction. Their dim witted artist friends could give poor advice, or the market forces may sway them. There are a multitude of evil influences and obstacles at work in the world and it's a wonder any good art ever gets made.




> Well... as I've suggested on more than one occasion... all opinions are subjective... but some opinions are better than others... and yours I would deem to be notoriously bad at times. I cannot even begin to imagine placing Henri Moore and Giacometti in the same realm as Koons and Hirst.


I think I've proven myself more consistent than you over the years. You'll champion something beautiful by the old masters, turn around and recommend hideous modern garbage. My aesthetics are clear. I'm on team beauty and I like things that look like things.

Anyone who wants to know my taste in art can view my slideshow of art history here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/4725704...44816627/show/ I've recently filled it with dozens of beautiful sculptures which would make Henri Moore and Giacometti's work look like absolute trash in comparison. That is excellence and that is the standard I hold modern art to.




> Both certainly have some impressive technical skills... but I would agree that much of what they achieve is little more than garish kitsch. I think English has hit on something sow and then... perhaps when the target of his parody or criticism is worthy of consideration. But then I don't imagine that parody and satire are beneath the realm of "serious" art.


I like parody and satire too, but their parody and satire don't seem particularly original. Lots of guys are doing that paint an old famous painting with a twist thing. Plus, what Yue Minjun does with that laughing face being his calling card, the same joke over and over again does tend to get old. Even you got tired of drawing sad naked women sitting on rugs in their tiled bathrooms eventually and thought "Well what if that woman was Wonder Woman?" You know, mix it up.

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## Anton Hermes

> I guess Anton is another of the "Oh, I've just been shown to be completely wrong? I'll just ignore those posts" members we seem so abundant of late here on LitNet.


 :Rolleyes5: 

Yes, I didn't realize we were being so specific about the timeframe that the term _modern art_ referred to here, since the OP lacked any details about time periods or the names of actual artists we were allowed to discuss. Considering that the subsequent booger-flicking party hit on Rothko, I guess you can understand my confusion. 

It seems I can't win, though. If I go on and on about my love for artists who fall outside the strictly defined borders of this debate, I get criticized. If I give a few words of defense for an artist who is actually contemporary, no one's interested.

And if scattershot insults against _artists nowadays_, loads of codger resentment, and the sour-grapes ranting of a failed artist somehow constitute being _shown to be completely wrong_, then I guess you guys win the interwebz.

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## JBI

> I don't think that the talented artists I mentioned such as Ron English are in their profession strictly for the money, although I won't discount that option or assume that it plays no role in their work. Didn't Samuel Johnson write for the money, and didn't Faulkner write short stories for the money? I could forgive an excellent artist making substandard art to make a living, and I wouldn't begrudge them the roof over their head or the bread in their mouths if they delivered the goods at the end of the day. Orson Welles acted in some bad movies and wine commercials to finance his masterpieces like Othello. Guillermo del Toro made Pan's Labyrinth in between Hellboy and Hellboy II.
> 
> What I think the problem is in a lot of cases isn't the money, it's the philosophy as JCamillo suggested. We got some wacky aesthetics and theories of art that were enshrined and taught in schools for generations and our artists are being ruined in the cradle. In short, they are talented students with poor teachers. They grow up like crooked trees and for every personal insight, every thing they get right, they've learned some awful mannerism in the schools. Which doesn't mean that the academies are all to blame or that they only teach bunk. They teach good habits too, but it's a mixed bag at this point, and societal pressures are just as prone to push an artist in the wrong direction. Their dim witted artist friends could give poor advice, or the market forces may sway them. There are a multitude of evil influences and obstacles at work in the world and it's a wonder any good art ever gets made.
> 
> 
> 
> I think I've proven myself more consistent than you over the years. You'll champion something beautiful by the old masters, turn around and recommend hideous modern garbage. My aesthetics are clear. I'm on team beauty and I like things that look like things.
> 
> Anyone who wants to know my taste in art can view my slideshow of art history here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/4725704...44816627/show/ I've recently filled it with dozens of beautiful sculptures which would make Henri Moore and Giacometti's work look like absolute trash in comparison. That is excellence and that is the standard I hold modern art to.
> ...


I meant a visual artist, as it is virtually impossible to make money as an artist, the odds of failure are far higher than success. It's not like becoming a doctor, where you probably are guaranteed a steady income. 

I think most artists enter it, even if they harbor thoughts of grandeur, because they like to do it, and want to express something. Even if they like making money doing it, they probably also like doing it. 

Samuel Johnson despite his penchant for money, also loved the work he was reading and writing about, it is clear in the way he writes that he harbors satisfaction in his work outside of money. My point was that generally these crap artists have their reasons for why they do their work, and it usually is not money motivated.

I think if they really cared only about money, they would make art that is more interesting to the mass public who is generally the buying public (even if a rich guy buys it, popular appeal is always a form of appeal).

As for political art, it rarely amounts to anything good, look at all the awards and junk Ai Weiwei is winning, even though he is a third rate artist at best. That's an example of the crap artist doing it for the money.

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## JCamilo

Well, a doctor that does not like medicine or human contact will probally not make much money either. If you waste a lot of resource for something, be it learn to dance, drive a tank or to heal people, you are certainly motivated by some feelings towards the profession. Otherwise they would all try to be something that requires no learning and gives a lot of money, like President of USA. I do not see much difference between artists and other careers. 

The thing is more like Mortal pointed, the same artist that makes commercial works is at home making his personal portifolio, less market driven. And the market is not dumb. It can reckognizes and rewards talent. It can give space for the radical rupture (we call pop today something as rock and roll, which was born completely marginalized), it can work with degrees of expectations (Woody Allen was never expected to be Spielberg, but the market had enough room for him to have about a movie an year) and also demand quality and individualism from artists who are not so radical, let's conservative. Great artists are very good on sucking up the powerful.

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## mortalterror

> As for political art, it rarely amounts to anything good, look at all the awards and junk Ai Weiwei is winning, even though he is a third rate artist at best. That's an example of the crap artist doing it for the money.


You're right. That fellow's work does not impress me. Of the last century or so Chinese artists I've seen, I think Zhang Daqian is probably the best, and before him Ren Xiong was pretty good. Chen Yifei's Looking at History From My Space was pretty good, but I'm not sure I like his other stuff as much. I'd like to see more of Chen Shou Gang. Qu Qiubai in prison by Jin Shangyi was pretty good as was his portrait of Mao. He's definitely got a good mastery of the fundamentals. Zhu Danian, Yuan Yunfu, and Yuan Yunshang's murals at the Beijing International Airport are nice. Yao Zhonghua's O Earth was pretty. There are definitely some very talented artists working in China today and in the recent past that could stand to be better known.

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## tonywalt

The recognition factor is what drives the market- the better part of the wealthy know only what the 'next guy is buying'.

Jeff Koons is a great example-and he runs a "shop" of artists but like a more corporate version of Warhol.

Same goes for Hirst in Britain, but while also a one trick pony, Hirst at least has great showmanship, an amicable personality and interesting life story, whereas Koons is just kind of odd and blatantly commercial in motivation.

And once an artist has commercial success, the big money always circles the wagons to protect its biggest and worst investments.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> Yes, I didn't realize we were being so specific about the timeframe that the term _modern art_ referred to here, since the OP lacked any details about time periods or the names of actual artists we were allowed to discuss. Considering that the subsequent booger-flicking party hit on Rothko, I guess you can understand my confusion. 
> 
> It seems I can't win, though. If I go on and on about my love for artists who fall outside the strictly defined borders of this debate, I get criticized. If I give a few words of defense for an artist who is actually contemporary, no one's interested.
> 
> And if scattershot insults against _artists nowadays_, loads of codger resentment, and the sour-grapes ranting of a failed artist somehow constitute being _shown to be completely wrong_, then I guess you guys win the interwebz.


Cool, thanks.  :Thumbs Up:

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## Anton Hermes

> It would be quite funny if his whole argument was made because he thought we were bashing Modernism (not the capital 'm'), rather than modern art.


Funny because it says Modernism-capital-M in the thread title? Yep, that'd be a hoot.




> Do you honestly believe that Jeff Koons, Mark Kostabi, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, etc... are the least bit concerned with the opinions of the larger audience?


The artist's opinion of the audience is irrelevant. I certainly don't think that Blake, Beethoven, or Picasso really lost a lot of sleep worrying about what the audience thought of them. So why is there such a double standard about Hirst's alleged opinion of the audience, aside from the fact that you're desperate to drum up resentment against him and his ilk for personal reasons?

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

What personal reasons does stlukes have for disliking _certain kinds_ of contemporary art? I missed them. 



> Funny because it says Modernism-capital-M in the thread title? Yep, that'd be a hoot.


A bit of a mistake, I guess (though all nouns are capitalized in titles, generally--what differentiates art with a capital 'a' versus a non-captial 'a'?), but it was still pretty clear to everyone else, especially from carrying over from the last conversation, that contemporary art was being discussed. Didn't you ever wonder, "hmmm, this stuff they're describing (scatological art, sexually explicit art, etc.) doesn't really sound like stuff from the Modern era." You made a mistake and owned up to it, which is good--it develops character, I believe. I was ready to move on.

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## stlukesguild

The problem of the carcass is that discuss the material used to produce an artwork is ridiculous. Stone, meat, bones, etc. Does not matter. It is transformed and it is no longer what was in nature. 

I have two problems with this sort of art... the art of the found object. The first is that the art is rooted in the idea and not in the object. As such, the vast majority of Conceptual Art that employs the found object and purportedly raises the question as to "What is Art" is merely repeating Duchamp _ad nauseum_. The second issue I have is with the concept of "shock art". To a great many unfamiliar with Modern and Conceptual art such works are shocking and audacious... but after spending some time visiting art galleries and exhibitions of Contemporary art you find that the conceptual works employing the found objects... especially of a scatological nature... are as cliche as any tired painting of apples and lemons or yet another romantic sunset.

Anyways, reggarding Mortal, the cleaver (if they consider it beauty, why not) vs. the beauty... I think trully pop art still goes for very traditional versions of beauty. Hollywood movies, comic books, videogames... they do have some classical realistic obssession with beauty and physical perfection. Well, i would say the aesthetical of porn industry hardly forgot it. It is more the museum galeries who turned this way, which is funny, as the whole cleaver message of protest and originality started as a way to contest the traditional view in the museums. 

There's a couple of interesting books on the question of "beauty"... or more accurately, the traditional concept of "beauty" and why it became something of an anathema in Modernism and beyond. Again, "beauty" was never wholly ignored in Modernism. One need only look to Bonnard, Matisse, or even Rothko... but there were a lot of critics and art theorists who argued adamantly against "beauty"... and even the aesthetic. Arthur C. Danto suggested that we are living in an era in which aesthetics is wholly irrelevant to art. Of course this is why art critic Matthew Collings suggested that there is more "beauty" in contemporary advertising and design that there is in a good deal of contemporary art exhibitions.

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## JCamilo

> I have two problems with this sort of art... the art of the found object. The first is that the art is rooted in the idea and not in the object. As such, the vast majority of Conceptual Art that employs the found object and purportedly raises the question as to "What is Art" is merely repeating Duchamp _ad nauseum_. The second issue I have is with the concept of "shock art". To a great many unfamiliar with Modern and Conceptual art such works are shocking and audacious... but after spending some time visiting art galleries and exhibitions of Contemporary art you find that the conceptual works employing the found objects... especially of a scatological nature... are as cliche as any tired painting of apples and lemons or yet another romantic sunset.


I have no doubt, that people Duchamp is repeated ad nauseum to the point that one must tell he had an idea beyond shock vallue. But then, all art is repeated ad nauseum. Everyone can whistles Beethveen, anyone can retell a hundred times a story, etc. Perhaps, what most "groud-breaking" artists today should discover is that Duchamp and all modernism was in the spirit, quite similar to all old art. 

Anyways, the point that is that a carcass is not something much relevant to define art. In this case is not much a found object. Leather, tooth, bones, vegetables, etc all were used for artworks. It is not new. I told to a student, the best i can do is say if it is bad taste. 

The found object, even with Duchamp had the mininal of articial work. Not the so called skill or technique (as you pointed, this is not always the key for a good artwork) but of context and message. 




> There's a couple of interesting books on the question of "beauty"... or more accurately, the traditional concept of "beauty" and why it became something of an anathema in Modernism and beyond. Again, "beauty" was never wholly ignored in Modernism. One need only look to Bonnard, Matisse, or even Rothko... but there were a lot of critics and art theorists who argued adamantly against "beauty"... and even the aesthetic. Arthur C. Danto suggested that we are living in an era in which aesthetics is wholly irrelevant to art. Of course this is why art critic Matthew Collings suggested that there is more "beauty" in contemporary advertising and design that there is in a good deal of contemporary art exhibitions.


No doubt. Many modernists had a clear domain of what is beauty in the traditional sense. In literature this is obvious, we see Borges, Yeats, Eliot... In visual arts the competition with photography and cinema, with their considerable realism, is probally a reason for another view. Of course, the concept of Beauty is less classical, it is more close to what "enchants", and it came since the Goya monsters, Baudelaire love for caricature, etc. 

Society is slow to think. We still acting like the romantics trying to prove our generation will be humankind redemption.

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## stlukesguild

I think I've proven myself more consistent than you over the years. You'll champion something beautiful by the old masters, turn around and recommend hideous modern garbage. My aesthetics are clear. I'm on team beauty and I like things that look like things.

I'll agree that your aesthetics are consistent... but they are based first of all upon the notion that the goal of painting and sculpture is to mimic the visual appearance of things. I would doubt that you apply this same measure to music or literature. The second aspect of your aesthetics that limit your ability to judge visual art is that you approach the visual art work from a literary as opposed to visual angle. You have essentially accepted the values espoused by early 19th century academicians with regard to the "Hierarchy of Art". In other words... you are not looking to art first and foremost with a sensitivity to visual elements of line, color, value, composition, etc... but rather to the subject matter. Thus you cannot discern how this:



Or this:



Or this:



... could possibly be as great of a painting... or even a greater painting than this:



Or this:



Or this:



Or why a sculpture like this:



may be less important... and less of a work of art than a sculpture such as this:



I like parody and satire too, but their parody and satire don't seem particularly original. Lots of guys are doing that paint an old famous painting with a twist thing. Plus, what Yue Minjun does with that laughing face being his calling card, the same joke over and over again does tend to get old.

I'll agree that Yue Minjun's "satire" or "parody" ... if we can even call it that... is rather lame...



Although if I recall correctly, you were actually quite fond of the social satire of a painter like Paul Cadmus:



While I feel that the Post-Pop/Pop Surrealists and various "Lowbrow" artists have helped to shake things up and challenge the hegemony of the New York/London/Berlin high art market (which almost wholly ignores the audience beyond the super-wealthy) I'm not about to suggest that Ron English is one of today's greatest painters. If I were asked to name a few of the finest painters active over the last several decades I would include people like:

Anselm Kiefer:



George Tooker:



Antonio Lopez-Garcia:



Avigdo Arikha:



Andrew Wyeth:



Lucian Freud:


 
Chuck Close:



Sean Scully:



Richard Diebenkorn:



Balthus:



and Francis Bacon:



Of course there are any number of other artists that I simply find to be marvelous, sensitive painters... whether they are eventually recognized as major figures of not. Among these I would include:

Harry Holland:



Stelios Vaitakis:



Claudio Bravo:





Jan van der Kooi:





Scott Prior:



Aron Wiesenfeld:





Leonard Koscianski:



Robert Kushner:

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## stlukesguild

I meant a visual artist, as it is virtually impossible to make money as an artist, the odds of failure are far higher than success. It's not like becoming a doctor, where you probably are guaranteed a steady income. 

Actually... an artist can make a fairly good amount of money if he or she develops a very solid mastery of painterly realism and paints solidly marketable subject matter (meaning traditionally "beautiful" things... initially avoiding the nude... especially the male nude).

I think most artists enter it, even if they harbor thoughts of grandeur, because they like to do it, and want to express something. Even if they like making money doing it, they probably also like doing it. 

The problem that I see lies with the system of art education and the pretension of art educators/art schools. The sole goal of art education at a higher level should be limited to introducing students to the history of art and art production, and the development of basic traditional skills. But too many art institutions and art educators have assumed the role of promoting _avant garde_ art theory and creation. The very concept an "institutionalized avant-garde" is comic, to say the least, and the idea that the role of the art educator is to push the student in a given direction as opposed to merely helping him or her develop the tools needed to create as he or she sees fit, is obscene IMO. How many students enter art school every year with a passion for drawing and painting things... only to have it slowly beaten out of them as they find that what they are passionate about is denigrated... or worse yet, ignored, by faculty who imagine that their role is to churn out copies of themselves?

Samuel Johnson despite his penchant for money, also loved the work he was reading and writing about, it is clear in the way he writes that he harbors satisfaction in his work outside of money. My point was that generally these crap artists have their reasons for why they do their work, and it usually is not money motivated.

I wouldn't go that far. Chris Ofili, one of Charles Saatchi's staple of painters, famous for his elephant turd paintings laden with glitter and sequins, admitted that there is an entire group of artists churned out of the art schools in London every year creating what is colloquially known as "Saatchi Art"... in other words, art clearly intended to shock... and hopefully catch the eye of Charles Saatchi. There is a very strong mercenary careerist mentality among many young artists today.

I think if they really cared only about money, they would make art that is more interesting to the mass public who is generally the buying public (even if a rich guy buys it, popular appeal is always a form of appeal).

Unfortunately the market for art is almost exclusively limited to the wealthy. You need to recognize that when an artist invests several weeks or even months in the creation of a painting, he or she is not going to be able to sell it for a couple hundred dollars. I have stated in the past that I couldn't afford my own paintings... and I am being quite honest at that. The only way to make a decent amount of money selling to the mass public is to mass produce prints of one's work... and to succeed at marketing in such a manner is far more difficult... far more "iffy"... than marketing to a certain group of wealthier collectors.

As for political art, it rarely amounts to anything good, look at all the awards and junk Ai Weiwei is winning, even though he is a third rate artist at best. That's an example of the crap artist doing it for the money.

Unless an artist gains a serious critical recognition, political art is almost suicidal in terms of sales. Such work gets all the acclaim in cooperative galleries and college/university exhibitions dealing with "difficult" topics such as racism, sexism, gender identity, etc... but at the end of the day it is the painter of beautiful landscapes who goes home with a check.

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## stlukesguild

I have no doubt, that people Duchamp is repeated ad nauseum to the point that one must tell he had an idea beyond shock vallue. But then, all art is repeated ad nauseum. 

The difference is that in Conceptual Art it is not the work as an object to be appreciated in aesthetic terms that matters, but rather the idea... and if the idea is all that matters, then what is the value of repeating the same idea?

A love sonnet or a novel speaking out on certain social issues or a painting of a beautiful woman may be based upon the most cliche of ideas... but it isn't the idea which is of the prime importance... but the aesthetic form it has been given.

Anyways, the point that is that a carcass is not something much relevant to define art. In this case is not much a found object. Leather, tooth, bones, vegetables, etc all were used for artworks. 

Oh, I don't question whether almost any material CAN be made into a marvelous work of art. But to say that almost anything CAN be art, and anything/everything IS art... simply because an individual claims to be an artist and claims that this pile of poop is art... that I begin to question. 

Tracey Emin appeared on a TV talk show shortly after the Tate purchased her _Bed_ for some exorbitant amount of money...



Emin had taken her unmade bed with soiled linens, a few empty beer cans, some dirt underwear, used condoms (a favorite of Conceptual Artists)... and she placed this in an art gallery. The idea was that by changing the context of the bed, it became a work of Art (ie. Duchamp's "urinal").

On the talk show, she was asked what makes this bed a work of art. She replied, "It's a work of art because I say so."

The interviewer missed the obvious follow up question: "And who says that you're an artist?"

The commonly held theory today is that everyone is an artist (which is essentially no different from saying that no one is an artist)... or that one is simply an artist if one thinks one is ("I think [that I'm an artist], therefor I am."?). The reality is that it is the audience who decides what is or is not Art. The pre-historic cave painters and the medieval book illuminators would not have thought of themselves as "Artists" in any sense of how we think of the term. But their work is recognized as Art because it is thought of as Art by those most interested in Art: professionals (curators, art historians, art critics, art dealers), art collectors, subsequent artists, and well-informed art audience.

So what makes Manzoni's can of poop or Emin's bed or Hirst's rotting cow carcasses Art? They would suggest that the works in question are Art because they said so. This seems as valid as me suggesting that I am the Emperor of the Universe because I say so. Most would deem my assertion fantasy... if not hallucinatory. The alternative is that the art audience have deemed the works by Manzoni, Emin, and Hirst to be Art. But how true is this? It would seem to me that a rather small... but influential (ie. wealthy) audience has deemed such work to be art regardless of the opinions of the larger audience. 

Now Mr. Hermes has embraced (as expected) the Modernist "Ivory Tower" notion that the opinion of the audience is irrelevant... undoubtedly because (in the true Romantic/Modernist mindset) the artist is some visionary being superior to mere mortals whose moronic opinions are of no concern. After all... the great artistic innovators were always rejected by the public at first. We've all been taught that since day one. But is it really true? How shocking were the great innovators of the past... and for how long? Van Gogh was being called a "genius" in the press but two years after his death... and one of his paintings entered into the National Gallery of Art only 20 years after his demise. Picasso and Matisse were both lionized and embraced by the press and a large public audience while they were both in their prime. Beethoven's late quartets left some confused early on... but his funeral was attended by some 10,000-30,000. Yes, William Blake left his peers baffled... but in many ways this had to do with the forms he worked in (print and watercolor) and his almost archaic influences (medieval art). Again... it did not take long once his work was "discovered" by later artists and poets (Rossetti and Burne-Jones and William Morris).

But here we have Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst... beneficiaries of the greatest PR imaginable (as opposed to poor William Blake)... and yet for some reason the larger art audience has still not embraced their work as the product of undoubted genius. And why is this? Well some would have us believe that it is simply proof of the close-mindedness and the stupidity of the majority. After all we all know that art is a private language for sophisticates to congratulate themselves on their superiority to the rest of the world and the more utterly incomprehensible, repulsive, or simply ugly it is, the more obvious that it is full of deep significance that only the elite can fathom.

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## Anton Hermes

> So what makes Manzoni's can of poop or Emin's bed or Hirst's rotting cow carcasses Art? They would suggest that the works in question are Art because they said so. This seems as valid as me suggesting that I am the Emperor of the Universe because I say so.


What a terrible analogy. 

At least we can say Manzoni, Emin, and Hirst are presenting their efforts as works of art, i.e. in galleries for the viewing and consuming public. How you equate that simple rationale to a weird statement like _suggesting that I am the Emperor of the Universe because I say so_ is truly beyond comprehension. I wish we could discuss these matters reasonably instead of flying off into the realm of absurd hyperbole.




> Now Mr. Hermes has embraced (as expected) the Modernist "Ivory Tower" notion that the opinion of the audience is irrelevant.


That's not what I said. The fact is that I said that Hirst's (or any artist's) opinion of what the audience thinks is irrelevant.

Not that facts have any bearing on your elaborate fantasies, Stlukesguild.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Stlukes writes paragraphs and paragraphs making various point, presenting his case (with evidence, mind you), and you pick out two little statements to pick at. Hilarious.

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## Clopin

How would you define art stlukes? If you question the notion that everything can be art if it's described as such. I question it too, but I can't think of a definition of art that could be concrete enough to exclude my messy bedroom as art if I decided to claim that it was.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

One can only define art on a personal level (which is sort of what he's been doing)--it's too much of an ambiguous and subjective idea to come up with a definition and say, This is correct! I can go along with the idea that everything is art if its also recognized that some stuff is better art than others. My messy room? Art, okay, but good art? No. I hate the idea that art can't be judged.

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## JCamilo

> The difference is that in Conceptual Art it is not the work as an object to be appreciated in aesthetic terms that matters, but rather the idea... and if the idea is all that matters, then what is the value of repeating the same idea?


I do not think conceptual art is the only one that had an idea. The thousands crosses in the world do not nullify the idea behind it. But again, to the despair of modernists and post-modernists, their artwork is not different from previous artistic preservation: the copy, constand copy, banalize the idea. It became dull, technique, be it trash collecting techique or brushing, make art much inferior. Of course, ironic, considering post-modern art did had the idea of constant copy destroys the impact of art. 




> Oh, I don't question whether almost any material CAN be made into a marvelous work of art. But to say that almost anything CAN be art, and anything/everything IS art... simply because an individual claims to be an artist and claims that this pile of poop is art... that I begin to question.


Not everything is art. I would say Art can represent everything. 





> Emin had taken her unmade bed with soiled linens, a few empty beer cans, some dirt underwear, used condoms (a favorite of Conceptual Artists)... and she placed this in an art gallery. The idea was that by changing the context of the bed, it became a work of Art (ie. Duchamp's "urinal").
> 
> On the talk show, she was asked what makes this bed a work of art. She replied, "It's a work of art because I say so."
> 
> The interviewer missed the obvious follow up question: "And who says that you're an artist?"


That is like "Who say it is a classic". The interviewer could be more cleaver than try to give himself the credit to deny that something is art. He could do like you did before: Your art sucks. Not original. The message you want to pass is now more outdated than Monalisa smile. 




> The commonly held theory today is that everyone is an artist (which is essentially no different from saying that no one is an artist)... or that one is simply an artist if one thinks one is ("I think [that I'm an artist], therefor I am."?).


My theory is more like: I am not an artist, I am being an artist. But the point, is that art defined as what the artist does is a mistake. Artists do a lot of things. 





> The reality is that it is the audience who decides what is or is not Art. The pre-historic cave painters and the medieval book illuminators would not have thought of themselves as "Artists" in any sense of how we think of the term. But their work is recognized as Art because it is thought of as Art by those most interested in Art: professionals (curators, art historians, art critics, art dealers), art collectors, subsequent artists, and well-informed art audience.


Yes. But Audience is too me something broader, linked to a historical process. We have this before : Who defines the canon? Not the authors, readers, critics, but a combination of historical elements and all those members of the process related to literature. So, the same goes for art, the audiece defines the acceptance of certain expressions as art, but it is a historical proccess, which cannot be erased by a momment of pudor of one society. 

Of course, I do think the definition of art is too complex (plus, art itself explains what is art in the best possible, so it unwise to do otherwise), but must be always produce in a way that there is a transmition of information to one to another, so it is necessary a medium (and a emotion is an information). 




> So what makes Manzoni's can of poop or Emin's bed or Hirst's rotting cow carcasses Art? They would suggest that the works in question are Art because they said so. This seems as valid as me suggesting that I am the Emperor of the Universe because I say so. Most would deem my assertion fantasy... if not hallucinatory. The alternative is that the art audience have deemed the works by Manzoni, Emin, and Hirst to be Art. But how true is this? It would seem to me that a rather small... but influential (ie. wealthy) audience has deemed such work to be art regardless of the opinions of the larger audience.


That would be democracy. Majority does not matter here. Of course, without the prophetic power, I cannot tell the status their work will have in 100 years, but the best i can tell, is too say, similar works were accepted as art by a historical process. It is artificial, some message is there... Bad art probally. 




> Now Mr. Hermes has embraced (as expected) the Modernist "Ivory Tower" notion that the opinion of the audience is irrelevant... undoubtedly because (in the true Romantic/Modernist mindset) the artist is some visionary being superior to mere mortals whose moronic opinions are of no concern. After all... the great artistic innovators were always rejected by the public at first. We've all been taught that since day one. But is it really true? How shocking were the great innovators of the past... and for how long? Van Gogh was being called a "genius" in the press but two years after his death... and one of his paintings entered into the National Gallery of Art only 20 years after his demise. Picasso and Matisse were both lionized and embraced by the press and a large public audience while they were both in their prime. Beethoven's late quartets left some confused early on... but his funeral was attended by some 10,000-30,000. Yes, William Blake left his peers baffled... but in many ways this had to do with the forms he worked in (print and watercolor) and his almost archaic influences (medieval art). Again... it did not take long once his work was "discovered" by later artists and poets (Rossetti and Burne-Jones and William Morris).


I can see the popularity as not important. Of course, all artist wants some audience. Wants to be read. Even the crazy shy poets like Emily Dickinson. I guess because most poeple define art by what is good art and the idea of popularity to define what is good art turns in charcoal the ivory tower. 




> But here we have Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst... beneficiaries of the greatest PR imaginable (as opposed to poor William Blake)... and yet for some reason the larger art audience has still not embraced their work as the product of undoubted genius. And why is this? Well some would have us believe that it is simply proof of the close-mindedness and the stupidity of the majority. After all we all know that art is a private language for sophisticates to congratulate themselves on their superiority to the rest of the world and the more utterly incomprehensible, repulsive, or simply ugly it is, the more obvious that it is full of deep significance that only the elite can fathom.


I do not believe art is for superior minds. Not in sophisticated sense. I believe however there is snoberry who will love it. All is validy, because art can represent all that is human.When i see people saying, for example, the problem of joyce is his enigmas and it is not literature i only wonder, since when Enigmas are not a human form of expression...

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## Clopin

> One can only define art on a personal level (which is sort of what he's been doing)--it's too much of an ambiguous and subjective idea to come up with a definition and say, This is correct! I can go along with the idea that everything is art if its also recognized that some stuff is better art than others. My messy room? Art, okay, but good art? No. I hate the idea that art can't be judged.


I have a fundamental problem with that idea as well, and I think that an educated opinion is always worth more than an uneducated one. But at the same time I think that something as subjective as music taste or what paintings resonate with you can't really be "judged" as good or bad in those terms. Certainly there is art and music that I consider good and bad.

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## stlukesguild

How would you define art stlukes? If you question the notion that everything can be art if it's described as such. I question it too, but I can't think of a definition of art that could be concrete enough to exclude my messy bedroom as art if I decided to claim that it was.

The problem with the notion that "Everything Can Be Art" is that it doesn't take into consideration just what this "everything" entails. Manzoni was clearly toying with this idea... "Hell if I'm an artist and everything I make is Art, then even my s*** is art." His canned poop was sold by the ounce for the same price per ounce ans gold. The idea was clever... but is the actual work a worthy piece of Art? Most artists have sat around with their artist friends after a day in the studio, slugged back a few beers, and tossed about ideas like Manzoni's... but would never think to actually make such a work... let alone give it serious consideration.

Taken further we have the composer Karheinz Stockhausen's infamous statement in which he proclaimed that the bombings of 9-11 to have been a brilliant work of art:

_Well, what happened there is, of coursenow all of you must adjust your brainsthe biggest work of art there has ever been. The fact that spirits achieve with one act something which we in music could never dream of, that people practise ten years madly, fanatically for a concert. And then die. [Hesitantly.] And that is the greatest work of art that exists for the whole Cosmos. Just imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on this single performance, and then five thousand people are driven to Resurrection. In one moment. I couldn't do that. Compared to that, we are nothing, as composers. [...] It is a crime, you know of course, because the people did not agree to it. They did not come to the "concert". That is obvious. And nobody had told them: "You could be killed in the process."_ 

So if everything is Art... or if everything CAN be Art... then not only can a urinal be ART, and a disheveled bed be ART, and the artist's poop be ART, and my Uncle Joe sitting on the couch in his underwear eating Cheetos be ART... but as De Quincy toyed with in theory... even murder could be ART. Thus 9-11 could be Art... even the Holocaust might have been ART. 

The whole concept that the individual who has deemed himself or herself to be an "Artist" defines what is or is not Art is absurd. This is the point that Mr. Hermes couldn't grasp in relation to my analogy. The term "Art" presumes a something of a value judgment. A painting or a poem or a dance or a fine meal that achieves to a certain level recognized by others is spoken of as a work of "Art". To declare oneself an "Artist" (presumably with a great French accent as in "I am an _artiste_!") strikes me as the height of pretension. 

I am a painter. I have been a sculptor and a collagist and a draftsman. Whether my efforts amount to "Art" is for others to decide. Ultimately there is no simple definition of art that spells out just what elements may or may not be present. Rather, we might only define "Art" as being that which those most-involved and/or influential with regard to the study/appreciation/preservation of Art deem to be Art.

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## Anton Hermes

> Stlukes writes paragraphs and paragraphs making various point, presenting his case (with evidence, mind you), and you pick out two little statements to pick at. Hilarious.


I shouldn't mention that the basis of his argument is flawed? 

Stlukesguild can attack Tracey Emin to his heart's content. But if he's going to deny what she does is even art, he should have a coherent reason for doing so. All he has is a bizarre analogy to calling himself emperor of the universe. Instead of backslapping your message board bro, deal with the weakness of his argument.




> The problem with the notion that "Everything Can Be Art" is that it doesn't take into consideration just what this "everything" entails. Manzoni was clearly toying with this idea... "Hell if I'm an artist and everything I make is Art, then even my s*** is art."


Did anyone ever say _"Everything Can Be Art"_? Once again, you're taking issue with a claim that no one has ever made. Conceptual artists are just making a case, through their work, for a more inclusive definition of art.

As far as Manzoni goes, it's a conceptual stretch, yeah. But the fact that it was presented as art in an art gallery to an art audience and art patrons makes it plausible to include according to a reasonably broad definition of art. You don't have to like what Manzoni does, or put it in the same league as Rembrandt. But you can't really exclude it from being art. 




> So if everything is Art... or if everything CAN be Art... then not only can a urinal be ART, and a disheveled bed be ART, and the artist's poop be ART, and my Uncle Joe sitting on the couch in his underwear eating Cheetos be ART... but as De Quincy toyed with in theory... even murder could be ART. Thus 9-11 could be Art... even the Holocaust might have been ART.


Once again, you've headed off the deep end and decided that hyperbole compensates for your inability to present a coherent, mainstream definition of art that would exclude what Manzoni, Hirst, and Emin do. Let's not pretend that such bizarre exaggerations constitute any sort of consensus in the art world. Reductio ad absurdum doesn't get us anywhere in a discussion.

We can all agree that Van Gogh's paintings are art, right? And we can all agree that the Holocaust is not art, right? Then let's deal with the work of people like Hirst and Emin. Can you offer any definition of art that excludes what they do, without excluding plenty of other artists who may be more to your liking?

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## mortalterror

> That is like "Who say it is a classic". The interviewer could be more cleaver than try to give himself the credit to deny that something is art. He could do like you did before: Your art sucks. Not original. The message you want to pass is now more outdated than Monalisa smile.


An excellent point. If enough people decide that something is art then we should move on to the consideration of whether it is in fact "good art" and by what criteria we should judge it.

Also, while I agree that many different materials are capable of creating art, I'm not sure that they all do the job as well. For instance, I think marble is a better medium for sculpture than concrete. The texture looks better, especially under the light.

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## Anton Hermes

> But here we have Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst... beneficiaries of the greatest PR imaginable (as opposed to poor William Blake)... and yet for some reason the larger art audience has still not embraced their work as the product of undoubted genius.


Not for nothing, but Hirst did set the attendance record at the Tate Modern earlier this month: "a bigger draw than Gauguin or Rothko."

It seems the art audience and the curators of the Tate share a definition of art that includes Hirst.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> I shouldn't mention that the basis of his argument is flawed? 
> 
> Stlukesguild can attack Tracey Emin to his heart's content. But if he's going to deny what she does is even art, he should have a coherent reason for doing so. All he has is a bizarre analogy to calling himself emperor of the universe. Instead of backslapping your message board bro, deal with the weakness of his argument.


For the most part, I agree with his arguments. Aren't you the ones who's supposed to deal with them?



> Did anyone ever say _"Everything Can Be Art"_? Once again, you're taking issue with a claim that no one has ever made. Conceptual artists are just making a case, through their work, for a more inclusive definition of art.


So you contest that the theory that everything/anything can be art don't exist?

(and, yes, StLuke's is my bro--I've learned more from him on here than anyone else--I always got his back  :Nod: )




> Once again, you've headed off the deep end and decided that hyperbole compensates for your inability to present a coherent, mainstream definition of art that would exclude what Manzoni, Hirst, and Emin do. Let's not pretend that such bizarre exaggerations constitute any sort of consensus in the art world. Reductio ad absurdum doesn't get us anywhere in a discussion.


How are his examples hyperbolic? He cited actual artists doing and saying actual things, an artist actually selling poop, one using a messy bed as art, and one commenting on the artistic merits of 9/11. Saying a guy eating Cheetos or looking at the holocaust as art from those doesn't seem like much of an exaggeration. 

And, I'm just wondering (and please note that I'm genuinely asking this and not trying to be snide or make a point--I don't have time to scan this whole thread) did stlukes ever say those you list above (I am not familiar with them, honestly) don't produce art? Or did he just say they're bad artists? It just seems like you may be putting words in his mouth.

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## Anton Hermes

> did stlukes ever say those you list above (I am not familiar with them, honestly) don't produce art? Or did he just say they're bad artists? It just seems like you may be putting words in his mouth.


Concerning Manzoni, stlukesguild said: _The idea was clever... but is the actual work a worthy piece of Art?_ 

He also said: _So what makes Manzoni's can of poop or Emin's bed or Hirst's rotting cow carcasses Art? They would suggest that the works in question are Art because they said so. This seems as valid as me suggesting that I am the Emperor of the Universe because I say so._

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like he's not just criticizing those artists for creating bad art. He's questioning whether it can be considered art in the first place.




> For the most part, I agree with his arguments. Aren't you the ones who's supposed to deal with them?


I have dealt with them. I demonstrated that he's cherry-picking fringe artists (the ones who supposedly slaughter animals or commit suicide and call it art) and using them to characterize contemporary art as a whole. I dispute his preposterous claim that we can't include Tracey Emin's bed in our definition of art unless we also include the Holocaust. I'll point out again that he out-and-out lied about what I said about the artist and the audience.

I just want there to be civil discussion of the subject, not irrational alarmist nonsense and message-board shenanigans.




> How are his examples hyperbolic? He cited actual artists doing and saying actual things, an artist actually selling poop, one using a messy bed as art, and one commenting on the artistic merits of 9/11. Saying a guy eating Cheetos or looking at the holocaust as art from those doesn't seem like much of an exaggeration.


I could easily present a definition of art as follows: *Any object displayed in the context of an art gallery, to be assessed by art patrons and an art audience, qualifies as art.*

Now I'm not saying that's necessarily how I define art, or that it's the best definition. But I doubt anyone who crowded into Hirst's popular recent show at the Tate Modern would dispute that it's at least reasonable and coherent. Under this definition, Manzoni's tins of poo, Emin's bed, and Hirst's dead shark are technically art. Under this definition, the Holocaust isn't. 

But wait, didn't stlukesguild warn that there's this slippery-slope when we include things like unmade beds in our definition of art, whereby we can't stop until _we've literally made genocide and mass murder art??_

That's why it's hyperbolic. That's why we need to step away from the wild alarmist nonsense and discuss art like grown ups.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Good points.

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## stlukesguild

That is like "Who say it is a classic". The interviewer could be more cleaver than try to give himself the credit to deny that something is art. He could do like you did before: Your art sucks. Not original. The message you want to pass is now more outdated than Monalisa smile. 

Part of the problem there lacks with a failing of language. To be a "writer" doesn't immediately presume that one creates "literature"... to be a musician or composer does not convey some value judgment. In the visual arts, however, there is this notion that to be an "Artist" is something higher than to be a mere painter or sculptor... the later two being but craftsmen. Of course this goes back to the Renaissance and the aspirations of men such as Brunelleschi, Cellini, Alberti, Leonardo, and Michelangelo to be recognized as more than craftsmen. Renoir was never the greatest painter... but he has more than a few wonderful quotes. He suggested that one should strive towards being a good craftsman as it never prevented anyone from becoming a "genius". All visual art begins with craft. One draws or paints or sculpts or builds or whatever... and hopefully the end result is recognized as Art. Since the Romantics deified "artists" the term has taken on a connotation of some higher calling. One is an "artist" merely by saying that one is. The audience is irrelevant in this equation because "what do they know?" The best definition I know of an artist is "one who creates Art." Much of the debate seems to be who decides what is Art?

Perhaps we need a clear separation between "art" with a lower case and "Art" with a capital "A"... sort of like "modern", meaning "new" and "Modern" referring to that of a specific historical period: "Modernism."

Yes. But Audience is too me something broader, linked to a historical process. We have this before : Who defines the canon? Not the authors, readers, critics, but a combination of historical elements and all those members of the process related to literature. So, the same goes for art, the audiece defines the acceptance of certain expressions as art, but it is a historical proccess, which cannot be erased by a momment of pudor of one society. 

Exactly... but there is this attempt to circumvent this process. Huge sums of money have been invested in the work of figures like Warhol, Manzoni, Kosuth, Koons, Hirst, Emin, etc... The "value" of much of the work is questionable at best. If we take a painting by a 19th century academician such as William Bouguereau...



... his paintings would be clearly recognized as "art" regardless of context. The quality and the "value" of that art might change depending upon the audience... but the work will clearly always retain its value as a well-made painting. Manzoni's can of poop or Emin's bed, on the other hand, are wholly dependent upon the context... upon a group of collectors, dealers, critics, etc... who have deemed the work to be "Art". Taken out of that context, the works are nothing more than a can of poop and a messy bed. 

Time changes the context. If a future generation looks at Manzoni's can of poop and sees nothing but a can of poop... not Art... a lot of wealthy collectors end up with nothing more than some very expensive poop on their hands. Thus they flex their muscles in terms of influence in an attempt to circumvent the process of time and artistic judgment. 

The reality is that it is next to impossible to offer an certainties of judgment when considering modern/contemporary art. Perhaps the best we can achieve is informed opinion... and all opinion is subjective... but some opinions are better than others. 

I can see the popularity as not important. Of course, all artist wants some audience. 

When speaking of the "audience" obviously one is not speaking of "the masses"/everyone, but rather, the interested art audience... those who value art... take it seriously... and put some degree of effort into the study/appreciation of art. 

The inherent "problem" with visual art is that in most cases we are dealing with a unique object, and as such, an object that is very expensive and largely attainable in terms of ownership only to a select few wealthy individuals. An artist may wish to communicate with and appeal to a larger audience... but it is that small group of the very wealthy who do the paying. This might be all well and fine. We can all roll our eyes at the moronic crap that this or that wealthy idiot has spent his money on. But unfortunately it goes beyond this. The art press are coerced into focusing upon the art bought by the small group of very wealthy collectors through advertising dollars. The museums, which ideally should be a repository of the finest works of the past, have increasingly participated in the realm of contemporary art... as a result of pressure from wealthy collectors/donors and board members. Placing a can of poop in the museum (there's one in MoMA) puts the museum's stamp of approval upon this work. But is it the museum's role to approve the taste of the wealthy collector in spite of the opinion of the art audience as a whole? And here is where I agree with Bien: should public tax money be spent in purchasing and housing such art that the larger audience finds stupid... repulsive... or even insulting?

I do not believe art is for superior minds. Not in sophisticated sense. I believe however there is snoberry who will love it. All is validy, because art can represent all that is human.When i see people saying, for example, the problem of joyce is his enigmas and it is not literature i only wonder, since when Enigmas are not a human form of expression...

And Joyce is full of enigmas and word play and elements that challenge the tradition means of conveying a narrative... but at the same time it clearly remains literature... and he has survived the passage of time. Not many cans of poop being passed off as poems of novels, however.

----------


## JCamilo

Geez, the first and foremost meaning behind Duchamp prank is exactly that Museum and art galleries do not define what is art. The fuction of those places are commercial and most people attend to it because it is a cultural norm, not because in their head they are thinking about what is art. 

It is rather funny someone asking Stlukes too consider conceptual art by trying to define art by the place one object is exposed or how popular the exposition was. The definition is awful and circular: art is what is saw by an art audience and an art audience is the one who is viewing art. Almost as failed as Art is what an artist does and an artist is the one who makes art. 

Mortal: 




> An excellent point. If enough people decide that something is art then we should move on to the consideration of whether it is in fact "good art" and by what criteria we should judge it.
> 
> Also, while I agree that many different materials are capable of creating art, I'm not sure that they all do the job as well. For instance, I think marble is a better medium for sculpture than concrete. The texture looks better, especially under the light.


In other hand, imagine if Niemayer had used marble to build Brasilia. It would turn into the providencial joke : what is a white dot in the middle of nothing  :Biggrin:

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## stlukesguild

Did anyone ever say "Everything Can Be Art"? Once again, you're taking issue with a claim that no one has ever made.

In spite of your experience with contemporary art, it would seem you have little experience with the critical theory of the same. The ideas that "Everything can be Art" or even "Everything is Art" have been bandied about for decades. Joseph Beuys declared that "Everyone is an artist" and everything that an "artist" does... even peeling a potato... is Art. To prove this he exhibited his toe-nail clippings and other such things as Art. 

Conceptual artists are just making a case, through their work, for a more inclusive definition of art.

More "inclusive" as in including poop, toe-nails, and rotting carcasses?

Once again, you've headed off the deep end and decided that hyperbole compensates for your inability to present a coherent, mainstream definition of art that would exclude what Manzoni, Hirst, and Emin do. 

Considering that philosophers have struggled for centuries to come up with a workable definition of "Art" I somewhat doubt that you could formulate a more coherent definition yourself. 

As I have stated more than once... but you clearly just gleaned over this is your search for that one sentence that you might have the ability to question... Art is that which is defined or recognized as such by the informed and interested Art audience. By this definition there are those who deem the products of Manzoni, Hirts, and Emin to be Art... and there are those who deem it to be nothing more than bull****.

Not for nothing, but Hirst did set the attendance record at the Tate Modern earlier this month: "a bigger draw than Gauguin or Rothko."

It seems the art audience and the curators of the Tate share a definition of art that includes Hirst.

Most car wrecks on the highway draw a sizable audience as well. Not too long ago, Julian Spalding, art critic and curator (Ruskin Museum and the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow) interviewed a good number of those attending another Hirst exhibition at the Tate. A good number expressed simply a desire to see what all the fuss is about. The annual Turner Prize exhibition draws a similarly large crowd who come to witness the "car wrecks" and voice their outrage and incomprehension. The Tate (thanks to Charles Saatchi and Nicholas Serota) have been brilliant at marketing "shock"... echoing the old American broadcasting truism: "If it bleeds, it leads."

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## Anton Hermes

> Joseph Beuys declared that "Everyone is an artist"


Okay. So you've demolished the claim made by Joseph Beuys. Care to move on? 

Sorry for the sarcasm, but it's deeply comical to hear you treat the ravings of a fringe weirdo like Beuys like the definitive dogma of contemporary artistic praxis. It's no less bizarre than hearing you cite a comment from an old kook like Stockhausen in order to make it seem like it was part of a systematic, concerted effort to get the world to recognize the 9/11 terrorist attack as a legitimate work of art. Can we please be reasonable here?




> Considering that philosophers have struggled for centuries to come up with a workable definition of "Art" I somewhat doubt that you could formulate a more coherent definition yourself.


Um, but you're the one who's trying to exclude the work of Manzoni, Emin, and Hirst from the definition of art. I merely said that you hadn't presented a definition of art that would disqualify their work without doing the same for countless other artists whose work is worthwhile. 




> As I have stated more than once... but you clearly just gleaned over this is your search for that one sentence that you might have the ability to question... Art is that which is defined or recognized as such by the informed and interested Art audience. By this definition there are those who deem the products of Manzoni, Hirts, and Emin to be Art... and there are those who deem it to be nothing more than bull****.


Okay. But since the Tate folks and the crowds who packed in to see the Hirst exhibit this month would seem to any objective observer to constitute at least a certain portion of the informed and interested art audience, it would seem the art world does call what Hirst does art. And by the definition that you yourself presented in the paragraph above, what Hirst does is art.

I take no issue with your dislike of Hirst's or Emin's work. I personally don't think there's much "shock" in it, but that's a matter of opinion. What I take issue with is this point you keep pushing about whether it's art in the first place. Of course it is.

----------


## JCamilo

> [COLOR="DarkRed"]
> Part of the problem there lacks with a failing of language. To be a "writer" doesn't immediately presume that one creates "literature"... to be a musician or composer does not convey some value judgment. In the visual arts, however, there is this notion that to be an "Artist" is something higher than to be a mere painter or sculptor... the later two being but craftsmen. Of course this goes back to the Renaissance and the aspirations of men such as Brunelleschi, Cellini, Alberti, Leonardo, and Michelangelo to be recognized as more than craftsmen.


Well, you have yourself answered this. What is the aspiration and ambition of an artist is not reason enough (or at all) to determine if something is art. Yes, I suppose it is a matter of language. I can make drawnings, i will be painting and it won't be art just because i said so (and I will not say so). In fact, someone who is painting a house is also called a painter just like someone writing the newspaper is a writer. 

You know well, we have too many artworks without knowing a single dot about the creator of such pieces. 





> Renoir was never the greatest painter... but he has more than a few wonderful quotes. He suggested that one should strive towards being a good craftsman as it never prevented anyone from becoming a "genius". All visual art begins with craft. One draws or paints or sculpts or builds or whatever... and hopefully the end result is recognized as Art. Since the Romantics deified "artists" the term has taken on a connotation of some higher calling. One is an "artist" merely by saying that one is. The audience is irrelevant in this equation because "what do they know?" The best definition I know of an artist is "one who creates Art." Much of the debate seems to be who decides what is Art?


Forget the romantics, Stlukes. Their definition of artist has more to do with the discovery that God didnt create mankind, earth, universe, so a man was free to be an Artist that created all. And Duchamp was a visual artist. By now you must recall what you said earlier (before Mortal picks on you), the definition of craft, skill, etc. Is rather complicated. If some guys consider themselves a godbless, good for them. Charles Chaplin said he was just a craftsman. Not an artist. And of course, the cultural historical process just agreed to disagree with Chaplin. 




> Perhaps we need a clear separation between "art" with a lower case and "Art" with a capital "A"... sort of like "modern", meaning "new" and "Modern" referring to that of a specific historical period: "Modernism."


Well, the name modernism was born old, but why Art and art? So, the guy who works in a circus be "art", since his acting was never build up in Shakespeare Royal academy, where actors learn the "Art"? 

Just work with the irony, everything started with Duchamps mocking the Museums. It is rather obvious his "genre" was been outdone. 






> Exactly... but there is this attempt to circumvent this process. Huge sums of money have been invested in the work of figures like Warhol, Manzoni, Kosuth, Koons, Hirst, Emin, etc... The "value" of much of the work is questionable at best. If we take a painting by a 19th century academician such as William Bouguereau...
> 
> 
> 
> ... his paintings would be clearly recognized as "art" regardless of context. The quality and the "value" of that art might change depending upon the audience... but the work will clearly always retain its value as a well-made painting. Manzoni's can of poop or Emin's bed, on the other hand, are wholly dependent upon the context... upon a group of collectors, dealers, critics, etc... who have deemed the work to be "Art". Taken out of that context, the works are nothing more than a can of poop and a messy bed.


Context is important. But let's say, classical art style as Bouguereau appearing in building in the middle of the street? Grafitte still face some problem to be reckonized as art. And in a video game? And in an add? Some contexts will throw mud at the angel aureola just like in the poem of Baudelaire. 

But in this case, the style of this painting has the benefict of a longer and more solid cultural process that we reckonize as art. It is even hard to take it out of context, as much the Monalisa with moustache or pop Monalisa wants. It is not same for all, but 2 centuries ago, photography as art would be strange too. 

As the money, this is commerce. Warhol for example, was one of the godfathers of Punk with Velvet Underground and cia. Obviously, there is a lot of irony on the fact that Warhol is worth of so much money. He probally wonders "who didnt understood the joke?". The same is true I think in the past? There isn't a legend about the Venus Pudica? The city prefered the other version of the statue, which is now lost instead of Venus with, now, her most popular posing? They also had a misjudgment. 




> Time changes the context. If a future generation looks at Manzoni's can of poop and sees nothing but a can of poop... not Art... a lot of wealthy collectors end up with nothing more than some very expensive poop on their hands. Thus they flex their muscles in terms of influence in an attempt to circumvent the process of time and artistic judgment. 
> 
> The reality is that it is next to impossible to offer an certainties of judgment when considering modern/contemporary art. Perhaps the best we can achieve is informed opinion... and all opinion is subjective... but some opinions are better than others.


You will make M&M angry because of the no-judgement. I will just say the can of poop was a failure. And not even a colossal one. Since you dislike the romantics and they notion of holy artist, let's just say, some artists suck. 




> I can see the popularity as not important. Of course, all artist wants some audience. 
> 
> When speaking of the "audience" obviously one is not speaking of "the masses"/everyone, but rather, the interested art audience... those who value art... take it seriously... and put some degree of effort into the study/appreciation of art. 
> 
> The inherent "problem" with visual art is that in most cases we are dealing with a unique object, and as such, an object that is very expensive and largely attainable in terms of ownership only to a select few wealthy individuals. An artist may wish to communicate with and appeal to a larger audience... but it is that small group of the very wealthy who do the paying. This might be all well and fine. We can all roll our eyes at the moronic crap that this or that wealthy idiot has spent his money on. But unfortunately it goes beyond this. The art press are coerced into focusing upon the art bought by the small group of very wealthy collectors through advertising dollars. The museums, which ideally should be a repository of the finest works of the past, have increasingly participated in the realm of contemporary art... as a result of pressure from wealthy collectors/donors and board members. Placing a can of poop in the museum (there's one in MoMA) puts the museum's stamp of approval upon this work. But is it the museum's role to approve the taste of the wealthy collector in spite of the opinion of the art audience as a whole? And here is where I agree with Bien: should public tax money be spent in purchasing and housing such art that the larger audience finds stupid... repulsive... or even insulting?


But museums are not repository of holy art. They are commercial buildings. (not in the sense of a store, of course). That is the problem. Art must deal with mundane places. The very challenge of Duchamp exposed that the academic nature of museums is febble. 

Now, as taxes - being from other country, i have no idea how works in USA - I would say as most things, the governament does not judge on aesthetic merit, but democratic merit: meaning cultural inclusion. They will trust that specialists, reports, etc cover the information if their money is well used or not. 




> And Joyce is full of enigmas and word play and elements that challenge the tradition means of conveying a narrative... but at the same time it clearly remains literature... and he has survived the passage of time. Not many cans of poop being passed off as poems of novels, however.


You must give some time for the poop to survive. All aside, i see all those as children of the Fountain. Probally their main function in a few years is to make clear Duchamp was not just some lunatic. Just like, all the bad writers that try to imitate others, in the end are forgot, but help to preserve the memory and the immortality of a previous work. And Artist that is not copied probally didnt made something relevant.

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## stlukesguild

I demonstrated that he's cherry-picking fringe artists (the ones who supposedly slaughter animals or commit suicide and call it art) and using them to characterize contemporary art as a whole. 

OK... how is Damien Hirst a "fringe artist"? As you just noted, his recent exhibition set attendance records. His For the Love of God theoretically set the record for the highest price paid for the work of a living artist. (I say "theoretically" because it seem that Hirst himself was part of a consortium of buyers who helped to inflate the price of the work).

It would seem to me that before you can prove that I'm cherry-picking "fringe artists" you will need to establish just which artists you believe are the major players of today that in no way fall into the "fringe".

I dispute his preposterous claim that we can't include Tracey Emin's bed in our definition of art unless we also include the Holocaust. 

Please do explain just why it is that Tracey Emin's bed should be considered as a work of art.

I could easily present a definition of art as follows: Any object displayed in the context of an art gallery, to be assessed by art patrons and an art audience, qualifies as art.

This leaves us with the cave paintings of Lascaux, the stained glass windows of Chartres, the Sistine Ceiling, and even Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty all falling short of your definition. 

Now I'm not saying that's necessarily how I define art, or that it's the best definition. But I doubt anyone who crowded into Hirst's popular recent show at the Tate Modern would dispute that it's at least reasonable and coherent. Under this definition, Manzoni's tins of poo, Emin's bed, and Hirst's dead shark are technically art. Under this definition, the Holocaust isn't.

What is interesting is that Duchamp's urinal... or rather the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven's _Fountain_ (it seems that Duchamp merely took credit for a work/performance that was not his own) has become seen as the turning point in art... establishing the idea that context is everything... that something is Art because an artist has placed it in a gallery or museum with the expectation that it be viewed as art. Yet the original intent of the _Fountain_ was to challenge the notion that everything or anything can be art... the idea of art without critical discernment. 

If everything can be art simply by being placed in the right context... if poop can be art, and toe-nail clippings can be art, 

and f***-ing can be art...

[_In her videotape performance Untitled (2003), Fraser recorded a hotel-room sexual encounter with a private collector, who had paid close to $20,000 to participate,"not for sex, according to the artist, but to make an artwork." Actually, according to Andrea Fraser, the amount that the collector had paid her has not been disclosed, and the "$20,000" figure is way off the mark. Only 5 copies of the 60-minute DVD were produced, 3 of which are in private collections, 1 being that of the collector with whom she had had the sexual encounter; he had pre-purchased the performance piece in which he was a vital participant._]

and starving a dog to death can be Art:

[_Costa Rican "artist" Guillermo Vargas presented an art exhibition that featured a stray dog, allegedly captured from the streets and confined to the bare gallery floor with no amenities (food, water, shelter, toys) until it starved to death. The artist's purported point was to highlight the hypocricy demonstrated by people making the sick and starving dog the center of attention while many would ignore the same dog... or even the homeless... if seen on the street. Following public outrage, the gallery director claimed that the dog hadn't died, but rather had escaped. The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) investigated the incident after Mr. Vargas was chosen to represent Costa Rica in the Central American Biennial. While there are animal protection laws in Costa Rica, the exhibition took place in a gallery in Nicauragua.The WSPA attempted to ban Vargas from representing Costa Rica in the biennale, but the Ministry of Art and Culture, but they responded that as he was participating in the exhibition with an altogether different work of "art" they could not ban him._] 

But wait, didn't stlukesguild warn that there's this slippery-slope when we include things like unmade beds in our definition of art, whereby we can't stop until we've literally made genocide and mass murder art??

Then where do we draw the line? You seem to be suggesting that there is some clear cut line as to what is or isn't art. The only boundaries seem to be what is or isn't legal. In the push for an ever-increasing shock is it then really beyond comprehension it doesn't seem all that outrageous to suggest that someone is already toying with far more outrageous and shocking ideas in order to gain notoriety.

That's why it's hyperbolic. That's why we need to step away from the wild alarmist nonsense and discuss art like grown ups.

Perhaps it is the wild "nonsense"... the scatological and worse... that has greatly undermined modern and contemporary art in the view of the larger audience... until it has a sensational three ring circus an the level of the WWF... or a running joke.

Okay. So you've demolished the claim made by Joseph Beuys. Care to move on? 

Sorry for the sarcasm, but it's deeply comical to hear you treat the ravings of a fringe weirdo like Beuys like the definitive dogma of contemporary artistic praxis. 

It's no less bizarre than hearing you cite a comment from an old kook like Stockhausen... 

And you honestly claim you know something of modern/contemporary art? You would have us believe that Joseph Beuys and Karlheiz Stockhausen are considered nothing more than "fringe weirdos" and "kooks"? They were both considered leading figures in their respective art forms until their recent deaths. Please do go over to any of the classical music forums and see how far you get with suggesting that Stockhausen was nothing more than some old fringe kook. I may agree with you that he was a kook ( hell, he claimed to have come from another planet)... but he was certainly not considered a minor fringe figure in any way.

I take no issue with your dislike of Hirst's or Emin's work. I personally don't think there's much "shock" in it, but that's a matter of opinion.

I've seen enough of the ilk not to be the least shocked... but I recognize that the intent is to shock and outrage the public... and this is embraced by certain collectors as a means of proclaiming their own superiority to the ignorant Philistines.

----------


## Anton Hermes

> [COLOR="DisingenuousRed]I demonstrated that he's cherry-picking fringe artists (the ones who supposedly slaughter animals or commit suicide and call it art) and using them to characterize contemporary art as a whole. [/COLOR]
> 
> OK... how is Damien Hirst a "fringe artist"? As you just noted, his recent exhibition set attendance records.


As you well know, I wasn't talking about Damian Hirst. I specifically referred to _the ones who supposedly slaughter animals or commit suicide and call it art_, the ones you went on about in the previous thread.

Can you please stop being dishonest and lying about what points I'm making?




> Please do explain just why it is that Tracey Emin's bed should be considered as a work of art.


Because it was created and staged as a work of art, in a gallery, to be assessed by the art audience. 

Now I've asked you about ten times on what basis you could _exclude_ Emin's bed without excluding the work of many other artists who are much more creative. But you have yet to answer.




> [COLOR="StrawManRed]I could easily present a definition of art as follows: Any object displayed in the context of an art gallery, to be assessed by art patrons and an art audience, qualifies as art. [/COLOR]
> 
> This leaves us with the cave paintings of Lascaux, the stained glass windows of Chartres, the Sistine Ceiling, and even Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty all falling short of your definition.


More dishonesty. I specifically said _it wasn't my definition_, and that it probably excluded plenty of worthwhile art. But I presented that definition just to show that (contrary to your scaremongering nonsense about the Holocaust) there's no end to the reasonable definitions which could absolutely include the work of Emin and Hirst and yet exclude the Holocaust.




> If everything can be art simply by being placed in the right context... if poop can be art, and toe-nail clippings can be art, 
> 
> and f***-ing can be art...
> 
> and starving a dog to death can be Art


Is there no end to this puerile game? Now you're so desperate to sabotage any reasonable definition of art, particularly if it would appear to include Emin's bed, you're claiming that _it would lead to violent crimes and animal cruelty in art galleries!!_

How many times do I have to request civility in this discussion? Why do you always have to resort to this alarmist idiocy?

I've made plenty of trips to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. Every time, I've seen fascinating installations using multimedia, strange creations, and even some old-fashioned artworks. We're living at a time when art can tell us a lot about materials and craft, about the familiar and the new, about the observer and the object, about the way we process information, and about the human condition. I've been really floored by the artistic imagination of some of the artists whose work I've seen. I never feel like the artist is simply trying to shock me, or has contempt for my values. If I appreciate his or her art, why should that matter to me?




> Then where do we draw the line? You seem to be suggesting that there is some clear cut line as to what is or isn't art.


Once again, you're lying about what I'm saying here. In fact, I don't think there's a magic line dividing art from not-art. That seems to be your pet complaint.

I specifically said that we can all agree that Van Gogh's paintings are art, and the Holocaust wasn't art. If Manzoni, Emin, and Hirst constitute a gray area in the definition of art, fine. Let's look at whether a more inclusive definition of art is warranted.




> You would have us believe that Joseph Beuys and Karlheiz Stockhausen are considered nothing more than "fringe weirdos" and "kooks"? They were both considered leading figures in their respective art forms until their recent deaths. Please do go over to any of the classical music forums and see how far you get with suggesting that Stockhausen was nothing more than some old fringe kook. I may agree with you that he was a kook ( hell, he claimed to have come from another planet)... but he was certainly not considered a minor fringe figure in any way.


And again, you misrepresent my position. I have great respect for Stockhausen's experiments in electroacoustic music and composition, but _that's not what the subject was_. To take his crass comments on 9/11 and make them seem like a concerted effort to get society to regard the 9/11 terror attacks as a valid work of art is beyond the pale. You're being intentionally dishonest both with Stockhausen's comments and the way I criticized your use of them.




> I recognize that the intent is to shock and outrage the public... and this is embraced by certain collectors as a means of proclaiming their own superiority to the ignorant Philistines.


I discussed Hirst's work before, not that you noticed. I think the way he makes the observer confront death is pretty brave and original. With the carcasses, he can show the weird beauty of death, and with the flies-on-the-skull he can show us the ugliness of it. I don't for a minute expect everyone to be impressed. But denying that it's art is futile, and so far you've presented no coherent basis to exclude it aside from your personal dislike.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> How many times do I have to request civility in this discussion? Why do you always have to resort to this alarmist idiocy?


Awesome.

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## tonywalt

The criteria for me is: If you have to argue whether something is art or not - It isn't art. Or it is what is known in many circles as "crap".

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## Clopin

"... his paintings would be clearly recognized as "art" regardless of context. The quality and the "value" of that art might change depending upon the audience... but the work will clearly always retain its value as a well-made painting. Manzoni's can of poop or Emin's bed, on the other hand, are wholly dependent upon the context... upon a group of collectors, dealers, critics, etc... who have deemed the work to be "Art". Taken out of that context, the works are nothing more than a can of poop and a messy bed. "

This is the most important post in the thread. The stage for certain pieces of art, like a messy bed or a signed urinal is so transient and fictional that it will only exist for a brief period of time. These works of "art" lack the intrinsic value of beautiful, timeless sculptures or paintings.

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## Clopin

> The criteria for me is: If you have to argue whether something is art or not - It isn't art. Or it is what is known in many circles as "crap".


No...

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## Clopin

> and starving a dog to death can be Art:
> 
> [Costa Rican "artist" Guillermo Vargas presented an art exhibition that featured a stray dog, allegedly captured from the streets and confined to the bare gallery floor with no amenities (food, water, shelter, toys) until it starved to death. The artist's purported point was to highlight the hypocricy demonstrated by people making the sick and starving dog the center of attention while many would ignore the same dog... or even the homeless... if seen on the street. Following public outrage, the gallery director claimed that the dog hadn't died, but rather had escaped. The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) investigated the incident after Mr. Vargas was chosen to represent Costa Rica in the Central American Biennial. While there are animal protection laws in Costa Rica, the exhibition took place in a gallery in Nicauragua.The WSPA attempted to ban Vargas from representing Costa Rica in the biennale, but the Ministry of Art and Culture, but they responded that as he was participating in the exhibition with an altogether different work of "art" they could not ban him.]


This is pretty interesting actually.

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## Anton Hermes

> The stage for certain pieces of art, like a messy bed or a signed urinal is so transient and fictional that it will only exist for a brief period of time. These works of "art" lack the intrinsic value of beautiful, timeless sculptures or paintings.


Depends on your definition of "brief period of time." 

If you go see _The Last Supper_ today, you're seeing literally nothing that da Vinci actually painted. The mural started to decay shortly after Leonardo finished it, and has undergone several restorations of varying quality over the centuries.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Saw this on CBS's Sunday Morning show, and found it not only to be quite interesting, but to also have some relevance to this thread. Leonard Nimoy makes some interesting comments in defense of contemporary art. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?...flexGridModule

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## JCamilo

> Depends on your definition of "brief period of time." 
> 
> If you go see _The Last Supper_ today, you're seeing literally nothing that da Vinci actually painted. The mural started to decay shortly after Leonardo finished it, and has undergone several restorations of varying quality over the centuries.


No it does not depends. He is not talking about physical material used to paint it. Duchamp Fountain was lost, never seem. It does not depends on physical presence, object, to provoke the emotions today. 

I have no idea if the bed will have this power - not al paintings, sculptures, etc have either - but physical existence (and museum is but a collection of physical existence) is not necessary for Art. 

Now, I totally vallue questioning the defenitions and certains of others. But your definition of art (does not matter if you wrote it is not yours. Why someone would propagate a definition they do not believe in first place? What is the point) is circular and pure sophistry. Either abandon it or defend it.

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## tonywalt

> No...


uh huh!! (fingers in ears, screaming)

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## Clopin

> uh huh!! (fingers in ears, screaming)


What? You made the statement that anything that causes people to debate about whether it is or is not art is; 

1. Always not art
2. Always crap 

I don't even need to argue with someone who says things like that.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Lighten up.

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## stlukesguild

And Duchamp was a visual artist. By now you must recall what you said earlier (before Mortal picks on you), the definition of craft, skill, etc. Is rather complicated. 

Don't get me wrong. When I say all art is first and foremost a craft, I'm not limiting this to some classical notion of craftsmanship. There is a craft involved in Van Gogh, in Rothko, in the most crudely realized work. 

Context is important. But let's say, classical art style as Bouguereau appearing in building in the middle of the street? Grafitte still face some problem to be reckonized as art. And in a video game? And in an add? Some contexts will throw mud at the angel aureola just like in the poem of Baudelaire. 

Robert Hughes raised this very issue. He noted that if we take Carl Andre's _Equivalent VIII_...



... and we take it out of the context of the art gallery or art museum and place it instead in a parking lot somewhere, anyone coming upon the work will assume that it is nothing more than a stack of bricks... and they would be right. If, however, we take Rodin's Thinker and place it is the same parking lot...



... there might be some confusion as to what that statue is doing in a parking lot... but there would be no doubt that the work in question was still a work of art.

Works like Andre's _Equivalent VIII_ or Emin's _Bed_ owe much to post-war art theories that sought to close the divide between art and life. The notion that everything could be art or that everyone was an artist was just an offshoot of this artistic theory. The irony is that works like Andre's _Equivalent VIII_ (love the pretentious title) or Emin's _Bed_ are in actuality wholly dependent upon the context. Remove the context... change the context... and all you have is a stack of building materials and a messy bed.

As the money, this is commerce. Warhol for example, was one of the godfathers of Punk with Velvet Underground and cia. Obviously, there is a lot of irony on the fact that Warhol is worth of so much money. 

Warhol is certainly one of the most overrated artists ever. The vast majority of "his" art was produced by his factory of laborers ala Hallmark Cards. The worth of his work, however, has been kept in the stratosphere thanks to the efforts of the Mugrabi family who have purchased upwards of 800 paintings by Warhol.

You will make M&M angry because of the no-judgement. I will just say the can of poop was a failure. And not even a colossal one. Since you dislike the romantics and they notion of holy artist, let's just say, some artists suck. 

I'm fine with that. By the way... I am far from hating the Romantics. Remember, I'm a William Blake fanatic... and I love Turner, Beethoven, Schubert, and Wagner. What I distrust is the Romanticized notions of what an artist is.

But museums are not repository of holy art. They are commercial buildings. (not in the sense of a store, of course). That is the problem. Art must deal with mundane places. The very challenge of Duchamp exposed that the academic nature of museums is febble. 

Perhaps... but that is not the bill of goods that the museums are selling. And remember... with the fall of religion, the Art Museum and the Symphony assumed the position of the Church as a spiritual experience. The image the museums market is that they are presenting the finest cultural artifacts... the greatest works of art... for our edification. Of course this is greatly exaggerated. I cannot count the number of minor... even "bad" works by major artists hung in a grandiose manner as some proud possession... while truly marvelous works my less-well-known artists linger in the storage vaults.

The Rembrandt attribution scandals of the late 1980s/1990s are a case in point. A group a Rembrandt scholars and experts examined almost all of the paintings attributed to Rembrandt... and downgraded many to "school of Rembrandt" or "follower of Rembrandt" or "attributed to Rembrandt". Any number of museums finding their prized paintings downgraded, quickly removed the works from the walls and placed them into storage. This raised a lot of questions. If the museum curators believed the work was truly a marvelous work of art, what should it matter whether it were by Rembrandt or an unknown follower? If they didn't think the work was first rate, why place it proudly on display? Clearly it is the cult of personality... the name brand ala Gucci... that is of importance... not the presentation of the finest art. 

But most visitors to the museum presume that what is being shown... whether it is a painting attributed to Rembrandt or a Van Gogh or a Pollock or a can of Manzoni's poop must be on exhibition because the art experts believe that each of these works are among the finest artistic products of their day. 

Now, as taxes - being from other country, i have no idea how works in USA - I would say as most things, the governament does not judge on aesthetic merit, but democratic merit: meaning cultural inclusion. They will trust that specialists, reports, etc cover the information if their money is well used or not. 

There's very little support for the individual artist in the form of public money in the US thanks to a few controversies (Robert Mapplethorpe and Andre Serrano) back in the 1980s that led the Neo-Cons to almost succeed in cutting all government funding for the arts. Most of the support comes in the form of grants and tax abatement to major arts and art education institutions. It seems a fair question to me, to ask why public money should be used to support the purchase and exhibition of highly controversial art by institutions receiving public funding. Of course I question the very concept of a Modern or Contemporary Art Museum. Gertrude Stein pointed out that the very term Modern Art Museum was a contradiction. 

You must give some time for the poop to survive. 

 :Smilielol5:

----------


## Anton Hermes

> The irony is that works like Andre's Equivalent VIII (love the pretentious title) or Emin's Bed are in actuality wholly dependent upon the context. Remove the context... change the context... and all you have is a stack of building materials and a messy bed.


 :Rolleyes5: 

And conventional paintings and sculpture can't be de-contextualized and reduced to tubes of paint or hunks of granite? You act like these pretty pictures exist without any context whatsoever, and we haven't been acclimatized to appreciate conventional art over centuries.

Let's be serious.

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## stlukesguild

_SLG- Please do explain just why it is that Tracey Emin's bed should be considered as a work of art._

Because it was created and staged as a work of art, in a gallery, to be assessed by the art audience. 

In other words... the work is Art because the individual "artist" said so. I say it's Art, I place it in a gallery, voila! ART!!! Seems like almost anybody do it... to use the old cliche.

Now I've asked you about ten times on what basis you could exclude Emin's bed without excluding the work of many other artists who are much more creative. But you have yet to answer.

I've given you my most workable definition of art: *Art is that which is deemed as such by the interested and informed art audience.* 

Perhaps you won't miss it this time while you're glossing over what I've written in search of that one sentence that you feel you might be able to dispute.

My definition doesn't exclude or include Hirst or Emin. Clearly there is to consensus when it comes to the more controversial works of contemporary "art". Time will tell whether Hirst or Emin survive.

I could easily present a definition of art as follows: Any object displayed in the context of an art gallery, to be assessed by art patrons and an art audience, qualifies as art.

_This leaves us with the cave paintings of Lascaux, the stained glass windows of Chartres, the Sistine Ceiling, and even Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty all falling short of your definition._

More dishonesty. I specifically said it wasn't my definition, and that it probably excluded plenty of worthwhile art... 

OK... you present a definition... and then back away, refusing to take credit for it if it can in any way be found wanting... and then you call me "dishonest"?

there's no end to the reasonable definitions which could absolutely include the work of Emin and Hirst and yet exclude the Holocaust.

I'm all ears. Let's hear your definition... and let's be honest about it.

_If everything can be art simply by being placed in the right context... if poop can be art, and toe-nail clippings can be art,

and f***-ing can be art...

and starving a dog to death can be Art_

Is there no end to this puerile game? Now you're so desperate... 

I'm desperate? You're the one in a dispute well over your head... about a subject that you are lucky to have some slim inkling of. I have offered repeated examples to support whatever claims I have made... you dismiss these without offering the least bit of proof to the contrary. You make a fool of yourself with statements as to how Joseph Beuys and Karlheinz Stockhausen are "fringe weirdos" which suggests that you have little of no idea as to what has been championed in the art/music schools, the art/music press, the museums etc... for the last 30 years. If you really wish to continue this discussion in this manner, please go back and brush up on your contemporary art history/art theory.

I've made plenty of trips to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams.

Yeah... I forgot... Boston is the center of the art world right now. New York, London... and to a lesser extent, Berlin and Los Angeles are where the market, the money, and the power is at. I can't say I have heard too many artists wondering what's happening in Boston, nor read too many reviews in the major art press covering exhibitions in Boston.

This is not to say that there are not some fine artists active in Boston. There are some fine artists working everywhere. But when one speaks of the so-called "art world" which impacts decisions regarding what art is bought at the highest end, what art is talked about and written about in the major art press, what art students are emulating in art departments across the nation, what theorists and critics are being studied... it is not Boston or Baton Rouge or Detroit or Omaha or Cleveland that are being referred to. 

Personally, I'm all for ignoring the hegemony of the New York/London/Berlin/LA/Paris/soon-to-be Beijing art world. 

And again, you misrepresent my position.

Oh please!!!... you have no position to change. You simply jump into a conversation with a limited grasp of the subject, make vague accusations and blanket statements about what is or isn't happening in the arts today... and then repeatedly backtrack anytime you are challenged.

I have great respect for Stockhausen's experiments in electroacoustic music and composition...

_Stimmung_ was interesting... but for the most part I wouldn't listen to Stockhausen voluntarily.

I discussed Hirst's work before, not that you noticed. I think the way he makes the observer confront death is pretty brave and original. With the carcasses, he can show the weird beauty of death, and with the flies-on-the-skull he can show us the ugliness of it.

Oscar Wilde was perhaps one of the most insightful critics of art. His Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray offers a shrewd and penetrating understanding of art:

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. 
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. 
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. 
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty...

All art is at once surface and symbol. 
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. 
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. 
*It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.* 

Clearly Wilde was speaking of Art from a 19th century mind-set in which the "beauty"... the aesthetic merits of the art object were still relevant... prior to Duchamp and Post-Aesthetic "Art". Wilde never thought to tackle the question of meanings in ugliness. And he certainly wouldn't know what to do with the idea of discerning some aesthetic value... even "beauty" in a body of work of sliced carcasses and rotting flesh. One suspects that in spite of his poem to the contrary, Baudelaire would have been repulsed by the lack of taste and sensitivity to form. But then such things are irrelevant when you don't even design... let alone make your own art work. Ultimately, Wilde was right in that "it is the spectator... the audience... that art mirrors." Some will find profound meaning in ugliness... in rotting carcasses... even in cans of poop. Especially if doing so lends them the air of sophistication and cultured superiority.

And conventional paintings and sculpture can't be de-contextualized and reduced to tubes of paint or hunks of granite? You act like these pretty pictures exist without any context whatsoever, and we haven't been acclimatized to appreciate conventional art over centuries.

Let's be serious.

Yes... let's be serious. You are really equating taking a painting out of the context of the art gallery or museum with reducing it to tubes of paint? It what way do you possibly come up with that? 

Certainly all art works benefit from a greater grasp of the context... but I do not need to understand the context of Japanese culture and religion and history to fully recognize that this is art:









Somehow I doubt that many would recognize Beuys' toenails, Emin's bed, or Andre's bricks as being Art if somebody didn't tell them it was.

----------


## JCamilo

> Robert Hughes raised this very issue. He noted that if we take Carl Andre's _Equivalent VIII_...
> 
> 
> 
> ... and we take it out of the context of the art gallery or art museum and place it instead in a parking lot somewhere, anyone coming upon the work will assume that it is nothing more than a stack of bricks... and they would be right. If, however, we take Rodin's Thinker and place it is the same parking lot...
> 
> 
> 
> ... there might be some confusion as to what that statue is doing in a parking lot... but there would be no doubt that the work in question was still a work of art.


No doubt. The post-moderm owns much to the challenge of traditional system. It needs the conection. Banksy for example, his invasion of the museums is pretty much it. 

But I doubt it is the only art that will be removed from the context and suffer. Obvious famous artwork survive, but how many people really stop and remember the Statue of Liberty is an artwork? And about the urban paisagism and architecture ? Most people do not make the relation. The mundane work cause it i guess. 




> Works like Andre's _Equivalent VIII_ or Emin's _Bed_ owe much to post-war art theories that sought to close the divide between art and life. The notion that everything could be art or that everyone was an artist was just an offshoot of this artistic theory. The irony is that works like Andre's _Equivalent VIII_ (love the pretentious title) or Emin's _Bed_ are in actuality wholly dependent upon the context. Remove the context... change the context... and all you have is a stack of building materials and a messy bed.


The context works for all. Many of religious works of past are not "Mixed" with art, because art conveyed the notion of fiction that religion didnt support. Try to suggest someone the Qu'ran is art. A Muslim will say it is poetic, etc but never art. A non-muslim would easily acknowledge it. 




> Warhol is certainly one of the most overrated artists ever. The vast majority of "his" art was produced by his factory of laborers ala Hallmark Cards. The worth of his work, however, has been kept in the stratosphere thanks to the efforts of the Mugrabi family who have purchased upwards of 800 paintings by Warhol.


Dont get angry with Andy, he helped Velvet Undergroud and David Bowie is born from it. 




> I'm fine with that. By the way... I am far from hating the Romantics. Remember, I'm a William Blake fanatic... and I love Turner, Beethoven, Schubert, and Wagner. What I distrust is the Romanticized notions of what an artist is.


I think it is your anxiety of influence  :Biggrin: 




> Perhaps... but that is not the bill of goods that the museums are selling. And remember... with the fall of religion, the Art Museum and the Symphony assumed the position of the Church as a spiritual experience. The image the museums market is that they are presenting the finest cultural artifacts... the greatest works of art... for our edification. Of course this is greatly exaggerated. I cannot count the number of minor... even "bad" works by major artists hung in a grandiose manner as some proud possession... while truly marvelous works my less-well-known artists linger in the storage vaults.


Well, they may say whatever they want, but museum, libraries, etc. are moved by the democratic ideal of cultural access to all. And like it all depends on money to survive. In XIX century, the very place where those modern institution were born, there was already challenging views of the ivory tower they represent. Of course now, it is perfectly acceptable to accept it and challenge it, in the name of the inclusion and popularity that the references are a bit lost. I would say, most curators work to see as an oportunity to expressions, not a stabilished true. Provoking discussion is what bring public, they know it. 




> The Rembrandt attribution scandals of the late 1980s/1990s are a case in point. A group a Rembrandt scholars and experts examined almost all of the paintings attributed to Rembrandt... and downgraded many to "school of Rembrandt" or "follower of Rembrandt" or "attributed to Rembrandt". Any number of museums finding their prized paintings downgraded, quickly removed the works from the walls and placed them into storage. This raised a lot of questions. If the museum curators believed the work was truly a marvelous work of art, what should it matter whether it were by Rembrandt or an unknown follower? If they didn't think the work was first rate, why place it proudly on display? Clearly it is the cult of personality... the name brand ala Gucci... that is of importance... not the presentation of the finest art.


Yes, obviously. Just imagine the ammount of money lost this way? 




> But most visitors to the museum presume that what is being shown... whether it is a painting attributed to Rembrandt or a Van Gogh or a Pollock or a can of Manzoni's poop must be on exhibition because the art experts believe that each of these works are among the finest artistic products of their day.


Just like they will watch blockbusters and claim it is a masterpiece or read a new classic? Yes, like i said, what is so different in post-modern art. The public fall from all the cults, propaganda, habits...




> There's very little support for the individual artist in the form of public money in the US thanks to a few controversies (Robert Mapplethorpe and Andre Serrano) back in the 1980s that led the Neo-Cons to almost succeed in cutting all government funding for the arts. Most of the support comes in the form of grants and tax abatement to major arts and art education institutions. It seems a fair question to me, to ask why public money should be used to support the purchase and exhibition of highly controversial art by institutions receiving public funding. Of course I question the very concept of a Modern or Contemporary Art Museum. Gertrude Stein pointed out that the very term Modern Art Museum was a contradiction.


It is always complicated. Humanitis is irrelevant. Thinking is. Here there is a law that make private companies donate money to cultural projects or products. So they get taxes cuts. The problem is most of works are not so good and those who get more money? Like, those who can easily get the money by their own effort. So we see Gilberto Gil, culture minister, getting money that could pay for dozen other projects... and so, why giving money to artists?

----------


## Mutatis-Mutandis

> And conventional paintings and sculpture can't be de-contextualized and reduced to tubes of paint or hunks of granite? You act like these pretty pictures exist without any context whatsoever, and we haven't been acclimatized to appreciate conventional art over centuries.
> 
> Let's be serious.


Okay, seriously, how is that de-contextualizing a painting? When stlukes mentioned de-contextualizing a work like the messy bed or can of poop, he meant taking the _whole_ piece of art out of the art gallery (which is the only place it could be seen as art, aside maybe from a home or display that specifically presents it as such). If de-contextualizing a painting is akin to reducing it to its respective paint, then de-contextualizing the messy bed would be taking the pillows, bedspread, condoms, etc., and putting them all back into their original packaging. That's just silly, and for someone constantly yelping about someone misrepresenting his argument and being dishonest, this tells me that you just another "do as I say, not as I do" person, or you simply don't know what you're talking about.

The point that was trying to be made with the comments on de-contextualizing a piece of art is that if you take that messy bed and put it out of an art galley, people aren't going to recognize it as art, it's just going to be a messy bed. If you take (most) paintings and sculptures and put them anywhere, they're still identifiable as being art. _That_ was the point. Seriously.

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## Anton Hermes

> The point that was trying to be made with the comments on de-contextualizing a piece of art is that if you take that messy bed and put it out of an art galley, people aren't going to recognize it as art, it's just going to be a messy bed. If you take (most) paintings and sculptures and put them anywhere, they're still identifiable as being art.


Only because we've already been acculturated to recognize paintings-on-canvas and sculpted materials as fine art. I understand the argument. But it's basically irrelevant in terms of making a distinction between what Van Gogh did and what Tracey Emin did, because the entire _point_ of presenting quotidian artifacts as fine art is demonstrating how the context of the art gallery setting changes the way we look at, interpret, and value these items.

Personally, I'm not that big a fan of Emin's bed, and I don't mind people leveling criticism at what she does. But saying her work wouldn't be art outside the gallery is the same as saying that professional boxers should be prosecuted for assault and battery: whether we appreciate what they do or not, the context of the art gallery or the boxing ring changes the way we interpret what they do.

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## Clopin

"is the same as saying that professional boxers should be prosecuted for assault and battery"

Which they would be outside of a boxing ring. Terrible analogy.

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## Anton Hermes

> In other words... the work is Art because the individual "artist" said so. I say it's Art, I place it in a gallery, voila! ART!!! Seems like almost anybody do it... to use the old cliche.
> 
> I've given you my most workable definition of art: *Art is that which is deemed as such by the interested and informed art audience.*
> 
> Perhaps you won't miss it this time while you're glossing over what I've written in search of that one sentence that you feel you might be able to dispute.
> 
> My definition doesn't exclude or include Hirst or Emin. Clearly there is to consensus when it comes to the more controversial works of contemporary "art". Time will tell whether Hirst or Emin survive.


But time will tell whether people regard their work as good or bad, it won't tell whether their work _qualifies as art_ or not. The history of art (particularly since the 20th century) has been a gradual expansion of what can be acceptably defined as art. There's no dispute today as to whether what was presented as art by Duchamp or Cage or Warhol still qualifies as art. The reputations of these artists may rise or fall, but no one denies that their work was art. Can you name anything that was once considered art by the informed audience and now isn't even regarded as art at all? I'd be interested to know.




> I could easily present a definition of art as follows: Any object displayed in the context of an art gallery, to be assessed by art patrons and an art audience, qualifies as art.
> 
> _This leaves us with the cave paintings of Lascaux, the stained glass windows of Chartres, the Sistine Ceiling, and even Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty all falling short of your definition._
> 
> More dishonesty. I specifically said it wasn't my definition, and that it probably excluded plenty of worthwhile art... 
> 
> OK... you present a definition... and then back away, refusing to take credit for it if it can in any way be found wanting... and then you call me "dishonest"?


Look, you're the only one here who ever made claims as to the importance of distinguishing what is art and what isn't. You're the only one who complained that admitting that Emin's bed is art would lead us down the slippery slope until we'd be unable to exclude such things as self-castration, animal cruelty, public fornication, 9/11, and the Holocaust from being considered art. The definition I offered, as you well know, was only supposed to refute your alarmist ravings, not to represent what I feel about art or be the definitive summation of what art is. If you want to criticize it for something it was never supposed to be in the first place, be my guest; but don't make it sound like your message-board nitpicking is anything more than rhetorical grandstanding.




> Let's hear your definition... and let's be honest about it.


Why should I? I never made the claim that what Manzoni, Emin, and Hirst do isn't art, you did. And your own definition of art certainly includes Hirst, since the Tate folks and the art-informed public have decided his work is worth a lot of attention. If in ten years he's washed up, that's the way it goes. But what Hirst does will still be regarded as art, regardless of whether people value it as good or bad.




> Is there no end to this puerile game? Now you're so desperate... 
> 
> I'm desperate?


If you were interested in honest debate, you would have quoted the rest of the sentence I wrote. As you're well aware, I wasn't simply insulting you, I was pointing out that your crusade to keep Manzoni, Emin, and Hirst from being considered artists is founded on scaremongering: you keep talking about artists killing or torturing animals, castrating themselves, and having sex in public, as if to demonstrate that a more inclusive definition of art inevitably leads to chaos and brutality. If such nonsense isn't desperate, I don't know what is.




> You're the one in a dispute well over your head... about a subject that you are lucky to have some slim inkling of. I have offered repeated examples to support whatever claims I have made... you dismiss these without offering the least bit of proof to the contrary. You make a fool of yourself with statements as to how Joseph Beuys and Karlheinz Stockhausen are "fringe weirdos" which suggests that you have little of no idea as to what has been championed in the art/music schools, the art/music press, the museums etc... for the last 30 years. If you really wish to continue this discussion in this manner, please go back and brush up on your contemporary art history/art theory.


You only brought these guys up because of their weird pronouncements, which you've used to demonize contemporary art as a whole. You want people here who've never heard of Beauys and Stockhausen to think of these two as presiding over the artistic direction of the new millennium. You're trying to put the idea in people's heads that there will come a day when artists are doing nothing more than offering their toenail clippings as art, as well as staging terrorist attacks and calling it art. It's fantasy.

I explained my position about Stockhausen already. In your fantasy world, Stockhausen was engaged in a systematic, concerted effort to redefine art in such a way that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 must be considered a valid work of art. You've never admitted that you misrepresented Stockhausen and deceptively presented his comments as something they were not. When I criticized you for taking the old kook's words out of context, you deceptively twisted my words to make it sound like I was criticizing the electroacoustic experiments and the legacy of composition of Stockhausen, and not just saying the guy's a notorious eccentric as well as a major composer.




> I've made plenty of trips to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams.
> 
> Yeah... I forgot... Boston is the center of the art world right now.


No need to be nasty. I was just mentioning that I'm impressed with what I see in the contemporary exhibits that I've been able to attend in the Northeast.




> And again, you misrepresent my position.
> 
> Oh please!!!... you have no position to change. You simply jump into a conversation with a limited grasp of the subject, make vague accusations and blanket statements about what is or isn't happening in the arts today... and then repeatedly backtrack anytime you are challenged.


Cyberbully much?




> "is the same as saying that professional boxers should be prosecuted for assault and battery"
> 
> Which they would be outside of a boxing ring. Terrible analogy.


Which is the exact point I was making. 

The purpose of the analogy was to demonstrate that the context of the art gallery and the boxing ring changes the way we define the object or the activity.

----------


## JCamilo

Nah, your analogy was awful. You could have used grafite, which basically uses some of the same material of painting, without canvas, and most people fail to reckognize as art and they find in the streets all the time. 

Those artworks depends on manipulation of context, but then all artwork do, but their message is not it. It is that art happens on mudane sittuation, not just on "ART" traditional habitat. which makes extremely funny their message can be only complete when they are offered on the same package tradional art was: museum and art galleries. It is clearly a path to failure. 

Considering art - and not propaganda, lines of people on art gallerie, etc - must provide to each individual the capacity for an sort of immersion, the lack of distinction from mundane word that a messy bed can cause is working against it. In the end it can be in the future, easily forgotten or labeled as bad art.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Anton, quit trying to play the victim, as if stlukes has been the only one who's been insulting in this exchange. It would be nice if you decided to quit complaining and presented your case--you know, a definition of art as you see it and maybe a defense of contemporary art in general (it wouldn't be that hard, but the fact that you won't--or can't--and instead constantly dodge when someone asks you, well, anything, leads me to believe you're just not that knowledgable on t eh subject). Instead you constantly complain about stlukes not arguing correctly or logically and misrepresenting your statements (which you've also done several times, ironically) blah blah blah. Come on man, make a point. State your case.

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## Anton Hermes

> Come on man, make a point. State your case.


It's quite simple: what Damien Hirst does with his cow carcasses in formaldehyde, what Tracey Emin does with the messy bed, what Manzoni does with the tins of poop, is art.

We can argue about whether it's any good, whether it displays any creativity, or whether these artists have any talent. But since the works were created and presented to the art audience as art, since curators have devoted space and time to exhibiting this work in an artistic context, and since the art audience and art press have taken time to assess the work and the intent of the artists, there's really no basis for excluding it from the concept of art altogether.

The question is not whether "everything is art," or whether the Holocaust is art. I don't think stlukesguild has presented anything substantial to demonstrate that what Manzoni, Hirst, and Emin do is not art. The definition of art he himself offered (and I agree with it: _Art is that which is deemed as such by the interested and informed art audience_) would appear to include the work of these artists. 

That's basically it.

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## miyako73

If art is an expression and humans are capable of expressing, isn't it logical to say that humans are capable of being artists?

I believe all humans are artists and we express ourselves in different ways and art forms. This only holds true if cooking, tea-making, shadow-playing, basket-weaving are forms of art.

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## Volya

Does this mean I can take a crap on a canvas, hang it on a wall, and call it art?

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## miyako73

Is the crucifix in a jar of urine an art? Yes, of course. Arts are produced in different ways and for different reasons. There are artists who focus on beauty and aesthetics, philosophy and ideology, design and innovation, functionality and structure. The canned poop falls under philosophy and ideology as it critiques the commercialization of arts. Like other art forms, that poop also expresses, although in a limited way. 

The perfect art to me is the one that expresses and focuses on all four-- beauty and aesthetics, philosophy and ideology, design and innovation, functionality and structure.

To me, the perfect sculpture is the Japanese toothpick. It expresses minimalism. It has design and function. And it is beautiful aesthetically.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...9QEwBA&dur=271

If you crumple a paper for the sake of crumpling it and call it an art, I don't think you express something. If crumpled papers are juxtaposed with a pen and a pad of papers on a table and an empty chair to express a writer's block, then it is an art. Art also tells a story.

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## stlukesguild

Anton, quit trying to play the victim, as if stlukes has been the only one who's been insulting in this exchange. It would be nice if you decided to quit complaining and presented your case--you know, a definition of art as you see it and maybe a defense of contemporary art in general...

The argument is completely useless. Mr. Hermes has yet to show that he has the least knowledge of modern let alone contemporary art. The only artists he has been able to name are those first brought up by me... followed, no doubt, by a quick rush to Wiki on his part where he has posted comments that virtually repeat verbatim the usual critical description of their work. Defending something as broad as "contemporary art" as opposed to offering an intelligent critique of specific individual artists is without any value. 

Now if anyone is interested in discussing specific artists... the good, the bad, and the ugly... then I'm all for it. As it now stands, this debate is about as ridiculous as my getting into a p***-ing contest with Orphan Pip over the more advanced questions related to biology.

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## Anton Hermes

Evading the argument.

Pompous put-downs.

When stlukesguild gives a victory speech after winning teh interwebz, he does it with class.

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## stlukesguild

Since this is a literature site, I thought I'd bring up an art form that has grown in stature over the last century that will surely interest the bibliophile. I'm speaking of "book arts". The idea of the book as a visual art object has been around for centuries. One need only look to the medieval illuminated manuscripts of Europe, the Middle-East, and Asia. The book as a visual art form... at least in the West... fell into something of a decline following the innovation of movable type. There were exceptions such as the marvelous Aldus Manutius, founder of the Aldine Press in 15th century Venice. William Blake, as usual, challenged the dominant directions in visual art focusing upon hand-made books combining both text and imagery... as opposed to oil painting or sculpture. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a Renaissance of illustrated books and _Livre d'Artiste_... books designed and illustrated by artists. Many of the leading figures of Modernism (Picasso, Matisse, Miro, Kandinsky, Chagall, etc...) were involved in creating _Livre d'Artiste_.

Toward the late 20th century there was a push to explore art forms beyond the traditional paint on canvas and sculpture... especially art forms that had been long ignored because they were largely relegated to women and minorities... or were denigrated as "decorative" or "applied arts" as opposed to "fine arts". There was a boom in the production of "artist's books" at this time... and the artists pushed the ideas related to books, writing, calligraphy, etc... well beyond the Livre d'Artiste... even into the notion of the book as a sculptural art object:





One interesting artist working within the realm of books/writing as art is Denis Brown, a master calligrapher producing some fascinating... stunningly beautiful... and immaculately crafted works of art employing calligraphy etched into glass:

















Brown also does more traditional calligraphic works... albeit on the scale of a sizable painting... often employing gold leaf. The work is pretty much on the same scale as my own paintings... and his use of calligraphy over the gold leaf is certainly intriguing... as I've been toying with lettering over the gold leaf in my own works.

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## cacian

[QUOTE]


> Is the crucifix in a jar of urine an art? Yes, of course. Arts are produced in different ways and for different reasons. There are artists who focus on beauty and aesthetics, philosophy and ideology, design and innovation, functionality and structure. The canned poop falls under philosophy and ideology as it critiques the commercialization of arts. Like other art forms, that poop also expresses, although in a limited way.


Oh well as far as urine is concerned one might as well call a toilet urinal art too why not.





> The perfect art to me is the one that expresses and focuses on all four-- beauty and aesthetics, philosophy and ideology, design and innovation, functionality and structure.
> 
> To me, the perfect sculpture is the Japanese toothpick. It expresses minimalism. It has design and function. And it is beautiful aesthetically.


Interesting. I can't imagine aestheticism and tooth related object being pleasing to the naked eye.
Hygiene of others is not something I call aeasthetically enticing to look at.
Oh well each ot their own.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...9QEwBA&dur=271




> If you crumple a paper for the sake of crumpling it and call it an art, I don't think you express something. If crumpled papers are juxtaposed with a pen and a pad of papers on a table and an empty chair to express a writer's block, then it is an art. Art also tells a story.


I thought a book told a story, art only emphasised the environment in which a story takes place.
I am now been told differently.
Art is an expression of talent, a visual that makes one feel something amasing and drives one to want to create and invent more visuals to inspire others.
Art is also a therapy session that invigorate our inner thoughts and well being in order to make us advance in wellness and feeling on top of the world.
That is my kind of art.




> Does this mean I can take a crap on a canvas, hang it on a wall, and call it art?


LOL I am with you all the way.
Why not flush the toilet ,record the sound it makes and call it music after all it is a sound.

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## miyako73

Cacian,

The first thing I learned in Art Studies was to make the definition of "art" inclusive and reflective of the reality in the art world. It made me humble. I learned that what looked ugly and juvenile to me is not necessarily true to other people. If we just focus on art being an expression of beauty, we will be excluding so many art works accepted as artistic by many. You cannot dismiss the works of Basquiat because they don't look beautiful like the works of O'Keefe. Basquiat was an artist because he had expressed a lot in his works-- his heritage, his life in the streets of New York, his addiction and neurosis, his understanding of myths and hero-worship, etc. Defining art as an expression of beauty, aesthetics, politics, ideology, philosophy, beliefs, design, innovation, structure, function is the only way we can be inclusive in our definition.

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## cacian

> Cacian,
> 
> The first thing I learned in Art Studies was to make the definition of "art" inclusive and reflective of the reality in the art world. It made me humble. I learned that what looked ugly and juvenile to me is not necessarily true to other people. If we just focus on art being an expression of beauty, we will be excluding so many art works accepted as artistic by many. You cannot dismiss the works of Basquiat because they don't look beautiful like the works of O'Keefe. Basquiat is an artist because he had expressed a lot in his works-- his heritage, his life in the streets of New York, his addiction and neurosis, his understanding of myths and hero-worship, etc. Defining art as an expression of beauty, aesthetics, politics, ideology, philosophy, beliefs, design, innovation, structure, function is the only way we can be inclusive in our definition.


Well I am not saying these things should not be stood and counted for. They have a place and a time.
There is time to mourn, time to think, time to cry and time to enjoy.
If I were to mix all of these emotions all at once then I am going to go literally insane.
Art for means I can go and have a change of air. See something that is artistic talented but with a positive invigorating outlook on life.
I live sadness anger danger and everything else life has to throw at us. 
Humans have proved time and time again that they are not able to function without throwing a row or shouting at each other. Humans are terrrible at treating each other and themselves right.
Then Art comes along and I am already dreading it by the sound of it.
I need a change of air, not a boost of depression.
Misery framed in gold and hand painted with cream and called art for me to look at is not fun.
I do not wish to share peoples miseries and neurosis publically with others and call it art. I have my own miseries.
I can think of better things to do. 
What about creativity and challenges? what about something nice to look all the time? what is wrong with that?
I mean urine in a glass and tooth pick YUCK sorry it is vile. I cannot help it. If that is art then I am out of here.
Doom and gloom all the way.
I am sorry as I said there is a time and a place for everything but not all at once.
My art is something that inspires invigorate so I when I wish to be creative and need to know how and when to start then I can go and look at beauty pure and simple 
Beauty keeps me saine because I have a life ahead of me and I need my sanity to help me live amongst others humans and make sense of it all.
In other words I will need Art to help me not God.

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## miyako73

Fair enough, if you keep your self-centered idea about arts to yourself.

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## Volya

A crucifix in a bottle of urine is not art.

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## miyako73

It's not if you know nothing about the motive/motivation of its artist.

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## cacian

> A crucifix in a bottle of urine is not art.


I mean I have come across someone who apparently drinks theirs instead. (YUCK)
I wonder if that is art as well.

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## Volya

It doesn't matter that the heck the artist's motives are, a bottle of piss is in no way ever going to be art. Art shouldn't NEED to be explained.

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## cacian

> It doesn't matter that the heck the artist's motives are, a bottle of piss is in no way ever going to be art. Art shouldn't NEED to be explained.


 :FRlol:  I just sometime wish I did not know certain stuff.
Ignorance is bliss. Haha.

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## miyako73

I mean I have come across someone who apparently drinks theirs instead. (YUCK)
I wonder if that is art as well.
__________________


It is art if he performs it and the artist has a discernible message. 

Last year in my country, an artist exhibited this installation:

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=contr...9,r:3,s:0,i:82

The Catholic Church protested. The close-minded said it was no art. The installation could be about the corruption in the church or about sex and morality. It was an art because it expressed something that moved its artist to produce it and affected many people who understood it.

The function of art, in my view, is to comfort the uncomfortable and discomfort the comfortable. The art above falls under the second category- discomforting the comfortable church.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

This isn't art?



It looks like art to me.

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## Anton Hermes

:FRlol:

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## Volya

The photograph is art, the object itself is not.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> The photograph is art, the object itself is not.


How can the two be separated? The photograph could not exist without the object.



> The function of art, in my view, is to comfort the uncomfortable and discomfort the comfortable.


I like that.

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## Volya

Different perspectives.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Don't cop out like that. You make a definite claim that the photograph is art and the object isn't. That's a pretty big claim. You should be able to back it up.

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## Volya

I did. The difference in the perspective is what makes one art, and the other not.

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## stlukesguild

You cannot dismiss the works of Basquiat because they don't look beautiful like the works of O'Keefe.

No... you can't dismiss Basquiat because his work doesn't look like Georgia O'Keefe (as if she represents some high ideal of art). You can dismiss it because it isn't all that good. He had some real potential. He had something of an innate sense of color and composition... but unfortunately he got picked up by a number of New York art dealers looking for the "great Black artist" and he fell in with the worst crowd possible who helped to feed his heroine addiction... just as long as he kept churning out the product. Had he gone to art school... or even been given the time to seriously develop on his own, he might have achieved something of real merit... building upon the aesthetic of Jean Dubuffet, late Picasso, and graffiti. Following his death, the various leaches and sycophants attempted to turn him into the art world's version of James Dean... St. Jean, the black martyr of the art world... and everyone knows no artist sells so well as a dead artist. Robert Hughes offered the best critique of his work... and the sleazeballs who hovered around him... in his essay, _Requiem for a Featherweight_. 

Basquiat was an artist because he had expressed a lot in his works-- his heritage, his life in the streets of New York, his addiction and neurosis, his understanding of myths and hero-worship, etc. 

Every teenager who has ever spilled out his or her teen angst in a diary can be acknowledged as having been "self-expressive". Self-expression alone does not make for art... or good art. There is lots of mediocre and bad art that is laden with expressions of a broad array of subjects.

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## miyako73

Another thing to consider if a certain work is an art is to look at the canon and history of its artist. You can doodle on a canvas and peddle it around as art. People will laugh at you because you have no canon and history as an artist of such visual or message.

My 8-yo nephew can do better than this by Basquiat:

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=basqu...29&tx=70&ty=80

My nephew's work won't be an art because he has no canonical portfolio and artistic history to show the consistent message of his work.

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## stlukesguild

*Andy Goldsworthy* is a Scottish sculptor, photographer and environmentalist known for creating art work in natural settings. Occasionally he has produced site-specific works in museums and galleries. Goldsworthy's materials include flowers, slate, icicles, leaves, mud, limestone, pinecones, snow, rocks, twigs, and thorns. He manipulates or crafts these using (almost exclusively) natural materials such as twigs, spit, found materials and tools, and methods including using his bare hands, teeth, spit, and found natural "tools" to tear, rip, stack etc...

His art is rooted in a deep respect for nature and owes much to pre-historic Shamanistic art (such as the sacred mounds of the Native Americans or Stonehenge), the Japanese Shinto/Zen aesthetic, and the Earth Art movement which includes the works of Robert Smithson and Richard Long. A key element in much of his work is the temporal or transient nature of the art object which decays, collapses, melts, or otherwise disappears as part of the cycle of life and death. As such, Goldsworthy documents the majority of his works in photographs.

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## JCamilo

> How can the two be separated? The photograph could not exist without the object.


The same way a photo of you is not you. Or a poem about you is not you. A movie about you is not you. The photo is an artificial representation of something else. As real as a painting. 

Like the example given by Stlukes, it is all artificial, only representations of nature. Therefore he photo may be art, the object may be not (in this sittuation, I would say it is likely you have two different artworks). 

Miyako:

The portifolio is not a good idea. Not talking about your newphew, but there is authors with a single book. There is also authors without "Life", it was not registered, and some artworks without know actors. Your first poem is already art too.

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## stlukesguild

Like the example given by Stlukes, it is all artificial, only representations of nature. Therefore he photo may be art, the object may be not (in this sittuation, I would say it is likely you have two different artworks).

Yes... Goldsworthy is a good artist to use to engage students is aesthetic discussions: which is the Art: the object left in nature or the photograph. You can play with the old query: "If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?"/"If an artist leaves an art object in the woods and no one sees it, is it Art?" Does Art imply an audience? If there's no audience, is it Art?

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> The same way a photo of you is not you. Or a poem about you is not you. A movie about you is not you. The photo is an artificial representation of something else. As real as a painting. 
> 
> Like the example given by Stlukes, it is all artificial, only representations of nature. Therefore he photo may be art, the object may be not (in this sittuation, I would say it is likely you have two different artworks).


Good points. You've convinced me.  :Nod:

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## JCamilo

I think it implies communication. Art first function was the transmition of some information while provoking emotions. Does not changed so much. 

Medieval aesthetics I think already nailed that art is artificial. Since Nature (and universe, man, creation) was only a power from God, all else was artificial, fiction, not cretion (hence the artist in the past being perfectly fine with copies). Even romantics - it is the basic idea behind Ode to Nightingale - argued it well (albeit Shelley Ode to SKylark can falsify the same idea). 

The main problem of What is art is that people expect a simple and easy dictionary answer. But it is a vast and complex object. One point of view will never be enough. Pretty much like the 7 blind wise men and the elephant parable.

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## miyako73

> The photograph is art, the object itself is not.



Without invoking that God is an artist or a creator of beauty, your idea about the separation of the two is true in a landscape photograph, for example, since natural mountains and trees are not works of art/artists.

The photograph of a crucifix in a jar of urine is a different case. Serrano called it "Piss Christ" because he did not want to separate the photograph from the object and the output from the process. Had he called it "Submerged Jesus", nobody would give a damn if his work was art or blasphemous.




> The same way a photo of you is not you. Or a poem about you is not you. A movie about you is not you. The photo is an artificial representation of something else. As real as a painting. 
> 
> Like the example given by Stlukes, it is all artificial, only representations of nature. Therefore he photo may be art, the object may be not (in this sittuation, I would say it is likely you have two different artworks). 
> 
> Miyako:
> 
> The portifolio is not a good idea. Not talking about your newphew, but there is authors with a single book. There is also authors without "Life", it was not registered, and some artworks without know actors. Your first poem is already art too.


By canonical portfolio, I mean representative works. People buy Basquiat's paintings not because they are beautiful and will fit well in their living rooms but due to the fact that they were done by Basquiat, who is known as an artist who did a particular kind of paintings.

Warhol was convinced of Basquiat's talent and so were some critics and dealers after they saw his representative works not just one painting. I think this is generally how contemporary artists are scrutinized and discovered.

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## JCamilo

Oh ,sure, Thought you are talking about what could define art. They do it, art is a commerce after all.

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## mortalterror

The thing about those latest pictures that StLukesguild posted is that while they are indeed art, they should not be classified with Rembrandt's paintings or Bernini's sculptures. Caligraphy, origami, architecture, furniture, glassware, textiles, and jewelry are all different things and we discuss them as such. Just because the lines are increasingly blurred doesn't mean the lines don't continue to exist. The materials, techniques, intent, and effect are very different for that guy who molds trees and ice than for a sculptor working on a block of marble. They still fall under the same broad umbrella of art, but I'm not sure they all do the same thing, or are effective in the same ways, or should even be judged by common traits or criteria.

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## JCamilo

But then, Music has also other effectiviines and intents than marble, no? 

As your list, the most complicated is calygraphy. They clearly have an aesthetic work. Some people say there is distinct style. What i question if it is byitself an artform or just a technique that was used in combination to other art expressions. 

Origami seems simple, if they werent made of paper, nobody would question they are in the end, like carving a figure in a stone. As much you can say the importance, the difficulty of the task. 

Architecture is easy. Not all building have any artist message, but those who have, clearly stand out. Usually civil engineers will complain about the useless thing he hand to deal because some dumb architect that does not know mathematic. 

Furniture as the work to make us chairs and table not. But obviously, lot of people crafted chairs and tables that go a little beyond as "stand still when we sit". The same goes for glassware, just to think all pretty holy grails in the world are nothing less but cups. 

Textiles I will imagine crowns are nothing but hats and some crows are artworks. My shirt is not of course. But I have seen somethat are well accepted as art. The same goes for jewlery, if crafted beyong the use because you are rich or a gangstar rapper...

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## cacian

I was just pondering wether art is bio degradable.
What I mean can art be broken down to its point origin where on considers the inventions of powders and colours and simple tools that allow for someone to take up painting?
After all it is not just about the frame, the final product, but also about the ideology behind the whole thinking process that allowed someone eventually to come out with the product.
How one does perceive an idea is one but how one does break it down to its bare minimum and reconstructs it again to make it art for all and not just the on is also interesting.
I am talking the thinking process behind the whole product.
The fact that someone managed to invent a colour is art itself.

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## mortalterror

> But then, Music has also other effectiviines and intents than marble, no? 
> 
> As your list, the most complicated is calygraphy. They clearly have an aesthetic work. Some people say there is distinct style. What i question if it is byitself an artform or just a technique that was used in combination to other art expressions. 
> 
> Origami seems simple, if they werent made of paper, nobody would question they are in the end, like carving a figure in a stone. As much you can say the importance, the difficulty of the task. 
> 
> Architecture is easy. Not all building have any artist message, but those who have, clearly stand out. Usually civil engineers will complain about the useless thing he hand to deal because some dumb architect that does not know mathematic. 
> 
> Furniture as the work to make us chairs and table not. But obviously, lot of people crafted chairs and tables that go a little beyond as "stand still when we sit". The same goes for glassware, just to think all pretty holy grails in the world are nothing less but cups. 
> ...


But we don't apply the same aesthetics to a hat as we do to a painting do we? That's one of the things that always drives me nuts when Stluke compares abstract art to music. We are experiencing them in completely different ways on completely different levels.

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## stlukesguild

And yet Mortal would have us judge AC/DC and Led Zeppelin according to the same criteria as Beethoven and Rossini.

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## Scheherazade

*~

W a r n i n g

Please do not personalise your arguments.

Off-topic posts will be removed without further notice.

~*

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## JCamilo

> But we don't apply the same aesthetics to a hat as we do to a painting do we? That's one of the things that always drives me nuts when Stluke compares abstract art to music. We are experiencing them in completely different ways on completely different levels.


No, but we do not apply the same to Monalisa and Metamorphosis. All is different. I agree, you can draw the line between a Crown and David's Michelangelo, etc. But the line is not definition of art, rather qualification. 

But then we do it between Dan Brown and Dante. AC/DC and that beethoveen guy...

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## miyako73

I agree to the notion that modern/contemporary arts should not be compared to the art works from the classical to the baroque periods as the definition of art varies from period to period and from movement to movement. Also, comparing origami to marble sculpture is silly. Either one has its own process of producing art.

Also, it's easy to say that one is not art and this one is, but the reality in the art world doesn't reflect our views. Our views are just negligible dots in the art world. We are not art critics and dealers. Their views on what is art matter to art buyers and collectors. Ours don't.

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## mortalterror

> And yet Mortal would have us judge AC/DC and Led Zeppelin according to the same criteria as Beethoven and Rossini.


Actually, if you check my blog I have them in two entirely separate categories. Beethoven is here in my History of Classical Music post:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...og.php?b=12203

with the symphonies, operas, concertos, sonatas, requiems, and marches, while AC/DC is in my history of popular music post here:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...og.php?b=11499

where rock is juxtaposed with pop, blues, jazz, folk, country, techno, hip hop, ballads, madrigals, show tunes, hymns, shanties, ragtime, and hymns.

But if pushed, I would have to say that AC/DC has more in common with Beethoven than Stockhausen does, and my penchant for hard rock is no odder than yours for Ravi Shankar's ragas. And before Scheherazade steps in, that's not an attack or a criticism but a clarification of our positions.

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## stlukesguild

Actually, if you check my blog I have them in two entirely separate categories. Beethoven is here in my History of Classical Music...

where rock is juxtaposed with pop, blues, jazz, folk, country, techno, hip hop, ballads, madrigals, show tunes, hymns, shanties, ragtime, and hymns.

But if pushed, I would have to say that AC/DC has more in common with Beethoven than Stockhausen does, and my penchant for hard rock is no odder than yours for Ravi Shankar's ragas.

I would argue that Indian or Persian Classical music has much in common with Western Classical music... especially if you go back to the Medieval period where influences from East and West are woven together in Byzantium, Italy, and Islamic Spain. 

I would actually agree with you with regards to Stockhausen. Indeed, it seems to me that a great deal of the _avant-garde_ "classical" (Stockhausen, Xenakis, Krzysztof Penderecki's early works, Pierre Schaeffer, etc...) are so far removed from the tradition of Western Classical music as to essentially amount to something else altogether. It is easier to recognize the links between Miles Davis and Duke Ellington on the side of jazz, and Gershwin, Ravel, Chabrier, Albéniz in the Classical realm, than it is to recognize any link between this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZazYFchLRI

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsOjBfEd5jQ

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9pOq8u6-bA

and Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart.

But that is what I have been suggesting with regard to art such that by Duchamp, Manzoni, Hirst, Beuys, etc... Such works seem a post-aesthetic art... an art (if we can call it that) that functions in a whole different way from the traditional visual arts. While you may not agree, I have no problem appreciating abstract paintings in the way as realistic paintings.

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## Clopin

ACDC sucks though.

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## Volya

ah hell no lol

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## miyako73

Can you really claim your messy room an art?

I don't think so. Be a known artist first; maybe you can poop on a plate complete with spoon, fork, and knife and claim the set as your masterpiece.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> ACDC sucks though.


 :FRlol:  Word.

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## Volya

> Word.


blasphemy!!!

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

AC/DC is simplistic crap.

----------


## Calidore

On the contrary, it's simplistic, but precision-executed. I'd especially put riff machine Malcolm Young and drummer Phil Rudd up against their counterparts in any other boogie-blues rock band, and late singer Bon Scott was one of a kind.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

It better be precision executed when it's that simple. When you're playing the most basic of beats (seriously, the drummer plays exactly the same in almost every song, down to his bass drum use and everything--it's hilarious) and riffs, there's not much of an excuse to not be precise. Now, if you're playing complex stuff and being precise, that's talent (and only when live--you can do anything in the studio).

I'll agree about the singer, though, he was one of a kind.

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## Volya

Talent and sounding good are not the same thing. Perfect example of this = the sex pistols

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## Anton Hermes

> AC/DC is simplistic crap.


At least Manzoni's was nicely packaged.

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## Clopin

> Talent and sounding good are not the same thing. Perfect example of this = the sex pistols


LOL! ahahahahhahaha

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## mortalterror

Mutatis, Moonlight Sonata and Fur Elise are rather simple but very nice. Not everything that is complicated is pretty and not everything that is simple is coarse. We shouldn't necessarily judge art by it's level of difficulty. There are some very difficult techniques which none the less are less effective than simpler ones.

And lest someone get the wrong idea and think that Mutatis is down on AC/DC because they are a rock band and he wants to champion classical music; I must inform you that he is a metalhead who loves bands like Opeth, Tool, and Between the Buried and Me, a variety of music I have little affection for myself.

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## JCamilo

But metalheads think heavy metal is the true classical musci rock and roll genre, don't forget it  :Biggrin: 

Just need to hear Therion to see they think this, but in the end, they are all like Manowar.

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## tonywalt

> Talent and sounding good are not the same thing. Perfect example of this = the sex pistols


So true. The Sex Pistols had alot of talent, but could never perfect the sound. Perhas because Sid Vicious was a perfectionist. :Tongue: 

Having said that Johnny Lydon did well with Public Image Ltd - it spawned alot of industrial music. He talent was better revealed with Public Image.

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## Volya

I was thinking the reverse actually tony...
Their music was incredibly simple, but it sounded cool (although that does depend who you're asking xD ).

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> Talent and sounding good are not the same thing. Perfect example of this = the sex pistols


True, but talent rarely hurts. 



> Mutatis, Moonlight Sonata and Fur Elise are rather simple but very nice. Not everything that is complicated is pretty and not everything that is simple is coarse. We shouldn't necessarily judge art by it's level of difficulty. There are some very difficult techniques which none the less are less effective than simpler ones.


I definitely do not disagree. Still, the inverse of your statement there is just as legitimate: Not everything that is complicated is coarse and not everything that is simple is pretty. I'd out AC/DC in that latter part.  :Biggrin: 



> And lest someone get the wrong idea and think that Mutatis is down on AC/DC because they are a rock band and he wants to champion classical music; I must inform you that he is a metalhead who loves bands like Opeth, Tool, and Between the Buried and Me, a variety of music I have little affection for myself.


Right on, buddy. I always wondered if anyone listened when I rambled in about metal. 



> But metalheads think heavy metal is the true classical musci rock and roll genre, don't forget it


I actually think the true classical music is classical music, which I enjoy just as much, if not more than metal.

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## tonywalt

> I was thinking the reverse actually tony...
> Their music was incredibly simple, but it sounded cool (although that does depend who you're asking xD ).


I actually like punk, even though the pioneers of the genre were before my time. It was soooo different than anything else and had such a [email protected]#k Youness about it that appeals to me. It's hard to qualify why I like it- it's just plain Cool.

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## Paulclem

I watched a top of the pops recently from the late seventies - the sex pistols were in the charts, but it being the BBC they didn't play it. Instead we had a lot of groups in suits and this guy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSuILPdMVzs

This is a clip from the Top of The Pops I watched. 
You might recognise the Cinzano theme tune in the adverts. We sooo needed the Sex Pistols, because there was so much crap about. I saw 2 songs that I liked and the rest nearly had me vomiting up my tea. Bleuuuugh.... sorry.

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## Clopin

Too bad the Sex Pistols were just invented by some jackass modern artist who gave a bunch of kids with too much free time and money something to latch onto. 

Oh and the music totally sucked too.

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## Volya

Their music didn't suck.

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## Clopin

Yes it did. But whatever we can't go back and forth forever.

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## Anton Hermes

The Sex Pistols were awesome.

I was in Britain in 1977, and I can attest that there was no more fertile soil for such a phenomenon as punk. Pictures of the Queen were literally everywhere, as she was celebrating twenty-five years of doing whatever it was she did for the nation. There had been a decade of dogmatic worship since _Sgt. Pepper_ was released, and Beatles nostalgia machine was making sure people still remembered the moment when rock and roll went from celebrating the passion of youth to enriching arty millionaires. And there was a garbage strike, so every pavement was nearly impassible due to rat-infested piles of plastic bags.

Enter the Sex Pistols. Professional musicians had every right to be insulted by the gusto with which these bozos parodied the docile riff-rock of the Stones or Alice Cooper. This was the sound of a band that had no reverence for the canon of good-old-rock-and-roll, the way industry careerists like KISS or Peter Frampton (two of the other phenomenally popular acts of the era) certainly did. And Johnny Rotten was a different kind of front man for rock, an ugly genius with a nasty sense of humor. He just oozed evil charisma, and he had no respect for anything, even himself. 

None of the popular rock bands at the time could have come up with a song as diabolical as "Holidays In The Sun," where Rotten freaks out at the New Belsen theme park over riffs going downhill just as fast as Western civilization. They inhabited a whole different music world from ELO and Queen, and the listing of the Top 20 POPS that summer proved it: there was a blank spot where "God Save the Queen" should have been.

This was a band that wasn't supposed to have staying power, and they imploded after one half-arsed US tour. But they were rock's last renegades. The Pistols said _Destroy_, and they went down in flames. When grunge came around decades later, the motto was _Whatever_. Rebellion that feeble deserves our contempt.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

The problem with punk (and I mean the true punk that started with The Sex Pistols, not the glamorized, even crappier version we have today) is that it was more about the idea, the attitude, and the irreverence, and not so much about the music. The Sex Pistols sucked, but that wasn't the point, or in a way it was--they sucked and didn't give a ****. How could they give the middle finger that they did if they were refined, expert musicians? They couldn't. And that's all well and good, but I'm not sure how well their music translates now, outside of the generation it was born in, just like grunge. Their music was about context, so does it fit the context of today? Maybe, but the idea of the Sex Pistols was something new . . . so, obviously something old cant fill that same gap in the same way. I dig the message they sent, and some of the lyrics are pretty coo, by the very virtue of the message, but the music just isn't that good. 

I think they'll live on, but more as historical artifact than musical legends. I still see some kids wearing Jonny Rotten shirts every now and then, but are they wearing it because Rotten was a badass, or because they loved the music? The answer seems clear to me.

As to them being the last renegades? No. The last renegades lie within the genre of metal, the last true force that shook things up being Marilyn Manson. There have been others. Some black metal bands that have done some pretty extreme things on stage, but popularity has to be a requisite of having a true impact, I think, and they didn't have that. Metallica, Slayer, and Pantera (among a few others I can't think of) could be put in the renegade category, all of which came after The Sex Pistols. We haven't had one in a while, unless you count Lady Gaga.

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## Paulclem

The effect of punk can't be underestimated in the late 70s. We went from prog rock and disco to punk in a very short season. It changed the mindsets of a lot of kids and bands aroud that time, and added a new dimension. 

It continud to have resonance in the 80s when there was an economic depression similar to today with lots of cuts and lost jobs, and the punk message seemed to rise from a petulance with authority to a real sense of grievance. We had riots around that time too. 

At the time I didn't like them much, and Johnny Rotten even less. He seemed aggressive and unnecessarily confrontational. Funnily enough he was on Jools Holland last night doing some PIL numbers. He did This is not a love song -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aumejrcEHs

which I liked at the time, (my mate was heavily into them), and so I watched an interview with him on Sky. He's still confrontational, but what he says is interesting. He claims integrity, and there has been nothing to suggest otherwise. He's clearly very unlike your usual rock/pop/punk band member. He's stuck to his guns, and remains stoically anti-establishment, but at the same time pro-people. I think his attitude has been consistent and I now admire what he's done.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

I didn't even know he was still alive.

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## JCamilo

See, I know metalheads do think high of the metal style  :Biggrin:

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## stlukesguild

So Alex... you have access to regularly visit the Tate Modern... although I would surely be spending far more time in other collections of the Tate than the Tate Modern... to say nothing of the National Gallery. Perusing the collections on-line I can't say that the Tate Modern even begins to come near the quality of the collections of the Guggenheim or the Modern wing of the Met... let alone MoMA. 

Anyway... with your access to the Tate (and/or other galleries in London) is there any Modern/Contemporary art/artists that you found yourself actually enjoying? Who/What?

(Just thought I'd make an attempt to move the thread back to the OP and away from inane disputes about AC/DC and the Sex Pistols. :Tongue: )

See, I know metalheads do think high of the metal style :Biggrin:  

Yes... they post frequently on the various classical music sites that I have frequented... arguing that Opeth or Black Sabbath are on par with Wagner and Beethoven. I've yet to come across a Bluegrass or Blues fan attempting to infiltrate the Wagnerians and Beethoven acolytes. Jazz shows up from time to time... but there's a certain recognition that Jazz is the American Classical Music. :Patriot:

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

*{edit}*



> See, I know metalheads do think high of the metal style 
> 
> Yes... they post frequently on the various classical music sites that I have frequented... arguing that Opeth or Black Sabbath are on par with Wagner and Beethoven. I've yet to come across a Bluegrass or Blues fan attempting to infiltrate the Wagnerians and Beethoven acolytes. Jazz shows up from time to time... but there's a certain recognition that Jazz is the American Classical Music.


That's awesome.

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## JCamilo

Punk rock (and even metal) is not off-topic when we talk about post-modernism art. Specially punk, a genre born under Andy Warhol influence and that is basically "ready-made" rock and roll which absence of technique is made up by attitude.

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## OrphanPip

> Punk rock (and even metal) is not off-topic when we talk about post-modernism art. Specially punk, a genre born under Andy Warhol influence and that is basically "ready-made" rock and roll which absence of technique is made up by attitude.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgcuU_JWuQU

They seemed to have had a sort of pomo aesthetic at the Factory when it came to dancing too.

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## Anton Hermes

The wife and I went with a friend to the Sackler Museum in Cambridge today. She was ever so pleased to see one of Gustav Moreau's dazzling Salome paintings there:



Lots of modernist stuff like Pollock and de Kooning too; contemporary stuff made out of steel plates, and potatoes hooked up to batteries; even a little something by that cultural toenail-clipping juggernaut Joseph Beauys.

But nowhere on the four floors did I see anything made out of or having anything to do with poo. Felt cheated, quite honestly.

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## JCamilo

Yes , the final image is Iggy Pop. 

To be honest, I saw a few interviews, they pretty much had no idea of what was doing here. The acts aren't coordenated, improvised dance that had no relation to the movies or music. Then Pink Floyd and mostly, the guy in your avatar noticed that with a litlle of organization that idea could be good and made it better and good pop and no more a "do anything".

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgcuU_JWuQU
> 
> They seemed to have had a sort of pomo aesthetic at the Factory when it came to dancing too.


I'm high from just watching that.

When thinking about Pomo and music, I always think of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PynbhqRlsbc

I love that they have sheet music.

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## Clopin

> So Alex... you have access to regularly visit the Tate Modern... although I would surely be spending far more time in other collections of the Tate than the Tate Modern... to say nothing of the National Gallery. Perusing the collections on-line I can't say that the Tate Modern even begins to come near the quality of the collections of the Guggenheim or the Modern wing of the Met... let alone MoMA. 
> 
> Anyway... with your access to the Tate (and/or other galleries in London) is there any Modern/Contemporary art/artists that you found yourself actually enjoying? Who/What?
> 
> (Just thought I'd make an attempt to move the thread back to the OP and away from inane disputes about AC/DC and the Sex Pistols.)
> 
> See, I know metalheads do think high of the metal style 
> 
> Yes... they post frequently on the various classical music sites that I have frequented... arguing that Opeth or Black Sabbath are on par with Wagner and Beethoven. I've yet to come across a Bluegrass or Blues fan attempting to infiltrate the Wagnerians and Beethoven acolytes. Jazz shows up from time to time... but there's a certain recognition that Jazz is the American Classical Music.


Opeth or Black Sabbath might not be on par, but are you suggesting that there were a handful of musical geniuses who lived hundreds of years ago and that their ability has never been equaled in any genre of music since then? If you do think so, why do you think it is that the entirety of the arts has yet to produce a genius on par with Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc.

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## stlukesguild

Opeth or Black Sabbath might not be on par, but are you suggesting that there were a handful of musical geniuses who lived hundreds of years ago and that their ability has never been equaled in any genre of music since then? 

A handful? Hundreds of years ago? Are you at all familiar with Classical Music. We're not talking of a handful of composers... we're talking of literally thousands. On one of the music sites I frequent, we are asked to come up with a list of our 25... 30... or 50 favorite composers. I couldn't get the number down to less than 130:

1. J.S. Bach
2. W.A. Mozart
3. L.v. Beethoven
4. Richard Wagner
5. Franz Schubert
6. Joseph Haydn
7. Richard Strauss
8. Gustav Mahler
9. G.F. Handel
10. Johannes Brahms
11. Robert Schumann
12. Piotr Tchaikovsky
13. Anton Dvorak
14. Claude Debussy
15. Antonio Vivaldi
16. Claudio Monteverdi
17. Giuseppe Verdi
18. Dimitri Shostakovitch
19. Gabriel Faure
20. Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber

21. Hildegard of Bingen
22. Pérotin
23. Léonin
24. Alfonso X El Sabio (attributed)
25. Guillaume Dufay
26. Johannes Ockeghem
27. Josquin des Prez
28. John Taverner
29. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
30. Orlande de Lassus
31. William Byrd
32. Carlo Gesualdo
33. John Dowland
34. Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
35. Heinrich Schütz
36. Dieterich Buxtehude
37. Arcangelo Corelli
38. Marin Marais
39. Henry Purcell
40. Jean-Baptiste Lully
41. Jan Dismas Zelenka
42. Alessandro Scarlatti
43. G.P. Telemann
44. Domenico Scarlatti
45. Sylvius Weiss
46. Jean-Philippe Rameau
47. Giuseppe Tartini
48. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
49. J.C. Bach
50. C.P.E. Bach
51. Christoph Willibald Gluck
52. Luigi Boccherini
53. Luigi Cherubini
54. Johann Nepomuk Hummel
55. Gaetano Donizetti
56. Vincenzo Bellini
57. Hecor Berlioz
58. Felix Mendelssohn
59. Frédéric Chopin
60. Franz Liszt
61. Jacques Offenbach
62. Johann Strauss II
63. Anton Bruckner
63. Alexander Borodin
64. Camille Saint-Saëns
65. Georges Bizet
66. Modeste Mussorgsky
67. Jules Massenet
68. Edvard Grieg
69. Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov
70. Leo Janácek
71. Giacomo Puccini
72. Hugo Wolf
73. Frederick Delius
74. Alexander Glazunov
75. Jean Sibelius
76. Erik Satie
77. Franz Lehár
78. Alexander Zemlinsky
79. Ralph Vaughan Williams
80. Alexander Scriabin
81. Sergei Rachmaninoff
82. Maurice Ravel
83. Alexander Gretchaninov
84. Charles Koechlin
85. Béla Bartók
86. Igor Stravinsky
87. Karol Szymanowski
88. Alban Berg
89. Heitor Villa-Lobos
90. Engelbert Humperdinck
91. Jacques Ibert
92. Frank Martin
93. Bohuslav Martinu
94. Sergei Prokofiev
95. Herbert Howells
96. Ernest John Moeran
97. Erich Korngold
98. Francis Poulenc
99. Aaron Copland
100. Ernst Krenek
101. Karl Amadeus Hartmann
102. Olivier Messiaen
103. Samuel Barber
104. Alan Hovhaness
105. Benjamin Britten
106. Witold Lutoslawski
107. Mieczyslaw Weinberg
108. Ned Rorem
109. Einojuhani Rautavaara
110. Henryk Górecki
111. Krzysztof Penderecki
112. Arvo Pärt
113. Philip Glass
114. Valentin Silvestrov
115. William Bolcom
116. Toru Takemitsu
117. Joseph Schwantner
118. Peteris Vasks
119. Tristan Murail
120. Daniel Catán
121. Pascal Dusapin
122. David Lang
123. Steve Reich
124. John Adams
125. James MacMillan
126. Erkki-Sven Tüür
127. Osvaldo Golijov
128. Jake Heggie
129. Peter Lieberson
130. Michael Daugherty
131. Toshio Hosokawa
132. Astor Piazzolla 

The first 20 are ordered according to preference... the remaining in something akin to chronological order. The composers from at least Janácek (70) on lived well into the 20th century... with most from Ned Rorem (108) onward still alive and active.

Is Classical Music a genre that has never been equaled? That's a difficult question. You need to understand that what we call "Classical Music" is not a single style, form, or music of a single historical era. The earliest extant Classical Music is Byzantine Chant dating to the Middle Ages. Osvaldo Golijov, on the other hand, is writing music today that draws from elements of Latin-American folk and popular music, Middle-Eastern music, Klezmer, European Classical music, and even rock music. The forms of Classical Music include Chant, motets, masses, madrigals, chanson, Sephardic dance, opera, sonatas, concertos, symphonies, tone poems, lieder, melodies, operettas, etc... and employ a vast array of instrumentation. If there is a unifying element to the whole of classical music... everything from Gregorian Chant to Gershwin's and Bernstein's jazz-infused music... it is that Classical Music is that music composed by individuals trained in reading and writing music. 

Popular Music... whether it be jazz, blues, or bluegrass, or folk ballads, or rock, or disco, etc... is essentially a form of "folk music". Folk Music has always existed. While Bach and Mozart were composing for an educated, "elite" audience, amateur minstrels, and singers, and ensembles entertained the rest of the populace in pubs and at fairs, etc... Most of this music has been lost to history for the simple reason that the musician/composers lack a means of preserving what they had created because they couldn't read or write music. What is termed "Classical Music" is essentially the best music that has survived by highly educated composers who were able to preserve their music in the form of musical scores. 

Everything changed with the advent of recording technologies. With recording technologies the jazz or blues or bluegrass musician/composer unable to read or write music, could still preserve his music. When these recordings were transmitted via radio... and later television... what had been "folk music"... the music of a given artist from a specific regional culture... became "Popular Music". It was at this time that the term "Classical Music" was really employed as a means of differentiating this music from that of popular music.

Ultimately, the music that survives (as with art and literature) is that which continues to be recognized as among the finest work... that which continues to resonate with the audience. Classical composers as diverse as Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel, Ibert, Milhaud, Stravinsky, Bartok, Copland, Gershwin, Bernstein, Philip Glass, and Osvaldo Golijov have admired certain achievements within the realm of Folk and Popular Music. I see no reason why the finest achievements within genre such as jazz, blues, bluegrass, and even rock and pop will not survive and be recognized as "classics" of a given form and era. Personally, I suspect that the music of Duke Ellington and Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk and Muddy Waters has a greater chance of survival than a lot of music by contemporary Classical composers such as John Cage, Stockhausen, and Xenakis. 

If you do think so, why do you think it is that the entirety of the arts has yet to produce a genius on par with Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc.

Why has the literature of the last 100 years not produced an equal to Shakespeare or Dante or Homer? Why has the last generation of painters not surpassed Michelangelo or Rembrandt? The reality is that such towering figures are extremely rare in the arts... and rarely recognized as such during their life-time. Among the Classical Composers that I ranked as the Top 20, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy, Dmitri Shostakovitch, and Gabriel Faure all lived well into the 20th century. There are many others of great/equal merit: Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Bartok, Stravinsky, and some would argue for Schoenberg among others. Undoubtedly, some of the finest music in nearly every genre will survive... but to what an extent, only time will tell. Most popular music is limited to the simple song structure and lacks the complexity and the development of symphony or opera. But just as there are certain songs of our parents' and grandparents' eras that continue to resonate...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSZxmZmBfnU

... some of the music of our time will survive... and be recognized as "classics". But is there anything now that equals this...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0PpTPvbr-4

I haven't heard it.

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## Anton Hermes

> Ultimately, the music that survives (as with art and literature) is that which continues to be recognized as among the finest work... that which continues to resonate with the audience.


Which has always been a more artificial process than the way it seems to us in the present day. The music of many great composers didn't just bubble up into public favor; it had to be championed by musicians, musicologists, and maestros dedicated to making neglected works survive through good performances and appropriate musical education. The music of Bach didn't resonate with audiences until Mendelssohn forced it on them a century later. Schubert's music was only heard by a handful of his friends until well after his death. Beethoven's later quartets were considered nonsense by audiences, until dedicated musicians made the effort to learn them and perform them. _The Rite of Spring_ was a debacle when it premiered, but persistent music directors have made it a classic by keeping it alive in the face of an initially uncomprehending public.

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## Mr.lucifer

What about avant-garde rock?

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## stlukesguild

Which has always been a more artificial process than the way it seems to us in the present day. The music of many great composers didn't just bubble up into public favor; it had to be championed by musicians, musicologists, and maestros dedicated to making neglected works survive through good performances and appropriate musical education. The music of Bach didn't resonate with audiences until Mendelssohn forced it on them a century later. Schubert's music was only heard by a handful of his friends until well after his death. Beethoven's later quartets were considered nonsense by audiences, until dedicated musicians made the effort to learn them and perform them. The Rite of Spring was a debacle when it premiered, but persistent music directors have made it a classic by keeping it alive in the face of an initially uncomprehending public.

There's a lot of mythology behind the narratives of the uncomprehending... and even hostile responses to art. Clement Greenberg suggested that all new art was first seen as ugly... a convenient defense strategy: if a work of art or an artist is rejected (or more likely ignored) well, then... there you have it... proof of the artist's genius and the fact that his or her vision was beyond that of the audience. But how true are these? Beethoven's late string quartets may have been "challenging"... but still some 30,000 people attended his funeral. Schubert may have been known in his lifetime to but a few close friends and well-informed music lovers of Vienna... but less than a generation later he was venerated by composers such as Schumann and Mendelssohn.

J.S. Bach is a nice case in point. Bach was not rejected by the audience. He was only known during his lifetime to audience for which he worked and to a small group of cognoscenti... aristocrats and musicians mostly. By the last decade of so of his career his music had gone out of fashion as the Baroque gave way to Classicism... and his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was far more famous than dear old dad. Yet Bach's reputation remained among musicians and composers. Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven were all aware of J.S. Bach... especially his keyboard music, which they all studied. The fugue in Mozart's Symphony 41... and quite likely that of Beethoven's Symphony 3 were nods to the great contrapuntal master.

With Mendelssohn's "rediscovery" of J.S. Bach you bring up an interesting point. Prior to Romanticism the audience had little interest in "old" art. Artists may have studied their predecessors, but you did not have a situation like we have today with public museums housing vast collections of the art of the past, or orchestras and opera companies staging works that were 100 or 200 years old. Bach's peers didn't listen to Gesualdo or Monteverdi. The audience of Mozart's time weren't hearing J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel.

With the advent of Romanticism there was a shift toward an appreciation of the art of the past. This trend has continued... and to a greater extent in our own era where few concerts of Classical Music feature contemporary music or living composers. On the positive side, this has resulted in a "rediscovery" or increased appreciation of many older composers once ignored: almost the whole of the Medieval and Renaissance, Handel (beyond the _Messiah, Water Music, Royal Fireworks_, and a few other pieces), Monteverdi, much of Vivaldi (including a huge cache of scores only discovered after WWII), J.S. Bach's sons, Bruckner, etc... 

As always it is subsequent artists and academics in the field that are essential to the "rediscovery" and increased appreciation of major artists forgotten or lost to history... but they are just part of the audience for the art of the past. That audience consists not only of the subsequent artists, and "experts" in the field... but also the well-informed art lovers. The continued appreciation of writers such as Alexander Dumas or Arthur Conan Doyle... in spite of the rather dismissive opinions of "experts"... is owed almost wholly to the larger audience. The reverse is true of someone like Schoenberg. In spite of his continued reputation among critics, music "experts", musicians, and composers, he remains largely unpopular with the larger informed Classical Music audience (I am not speaking of the masses of Katy Perry and Lady Gaga fans). Artistic survival is not limited to the taste of the "experts" and subsequent artists.

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## Anton Hermes

> The continued appreciation of writers such as Alexander Dumas or Arthur Conan Doyle... in spite of the rather dismissive opinions of "experts"... is owed almost wholly to the larger audience. The reverse is true of someone like Schoenberg. In spite of his continued reputation among critics, music "experts", musicians, and composers, he remains largely unpopular with the larger informed Classical Music audience.


I'd be interested to know how you define popularity in this context. A half century after his death, Schoenberg's work is a solid part of the canon. His music is played by world-class orchestras, and celebrity musicians record his work regularly. If he and other twentieth-century composers like Stravinsky and Bartók aren't as popular with CD buyers as Mozart or Tchaikovsky, that doesn't constitute rejection. Perhaps you're allowing your personal tastes to influence your objective appraisal of the standard repertoire.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Where'd he say Shoenberg was rejected? I'm pretty sure he said the opposite.

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## stlukesguild

I'd be interested to know how you define popularity in this context. A half century after his death, Schoenberg's work is a solid part of the canon. His music is played by world-class orchestras, and celebrity musicians record his work regularly. 

How well do imagine an all-Schoenberg concert would sell? You'll probably never find out because no major orchestra would even think of undertaking such an event certain to lose money. The finest recent recording of Schoenberg's Violin Concerto is probably that of Hillary Hahn who coupled the work with Sibelius' far more "accessible" concerto. Most orchestral concerts take a similar approach... commonly sandwiching the Schoenberg piece in between two far more popular works. There are/were champions of Schoenberg including Robert Craft, Pierre Boulez, Glenn Gould, and Simon Rattle... but there are a great many classical musicians and conductors who want/wanted nothing to do with his music... at least not the atonal/serial works. Interestingly enough, Schoenberg's most popular work remains _Verklärte Nacht_... with _Pelleas und Melisande_ and _Gurrelieder_ right behind... all tonal works... although they all push the boundaries of traditional tonality.

If he and other twentieth-century composers like Stravinsky and Bartók aren't as popular with CD buyers as Mozart or Tchaikovsky, that doesn't constitute rejection. 

Stravinsky and Bartók... as well as Prokofiev, Shostakovitch, Debussy, Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss, Puccini, and any number of other 20th century composers all all far more accepted by the larger Classical Music audience than Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Boulez, etc... Schoenberg, however, is commonly ranked by music critics and academics as one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. What do you imagine is the reason that he has failed to resonate with a larger audience? And please don't come up with some tired notion of the closed-minded audience that only wants Mozart and Tchaikovsky. Bach is surely no less challenging than Schoenberg... to say nothing of Wagner. The popularity of "rediscovered" composers such as Biber, Zelenka, Monteverdi, and Hildegard of Bingen suggest that the Classical Music audience is quite open to exploring music that is "new" and even "challenging" to them. 

Murray Perahia suggested that his problem with "atonality" is that the music never comes to a resolution... there is no "home." He is not the sole musician or composer of merit to suggest something similar. Schoenberg believed that his "discovery" of atonality was something that would assure his place in history and maintain the German hegemony in music for another 100 years. The problem that many see is that Schoenberg rejected a language that has existed for 1000+ years and then offered up his own language (Serialism) as an alternative... but a great many aren't ready to give up the old language for one they aren't convinced is "better". Alan Hovhaness suggested that atonality had it's value... the properly placed use of dissonance can be powerfully expressive... like a well chose cuss word in the right place. But dissonance loses it's expressive capabilities... its shock value... when the whole work is atonal. It is perhaps telling that atonality has been embraced by Hollywood... almost exclusively for use in sci-fi and horror films. It makes people uncomfortable... but how many want a music that continually makes them uncomfortable?

Perhaps you're allowing your personal tastes to influence your objective appraisal of the standard repertoire.

I'll be honest... Schoenberg has never really resonated with me... in spite of the fact that I have some 15 discs of his music. Obviously, its not for lack of trying. On the other hand, I quite like Stravinsky (some works more than others... I prefer the more daring early "Russian" works)... and I love Prokofiev, Bartók, Debussy, Mahler, Barber, Rachmaninoff, Weinberg, Ravel, Dutilleux, Shostakovitch, Richard Strauss, Takemitsu, Tristan Murail, and even Alban Berg. My lack of love for Schoenberg has nothing to do with my assessment of his popularity... or lack thereof... nor am I suggesting that immediate popularity is a measure of artistic merit. On the other hand... might not your personal tastes have influenced your objective appraisal of the opinions of those who don't embrace every aspect of the avant garde... even the avant garde of 100 years ago?

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## Anton Hermes

> Interestingly enough, Schoenberg's most popular work remains Verklärte Nacht... with Pelleas und Melisande and Gurrelieder right behind... all tonal works... although they all push the boundaries of traditional tonality.


Interestingly how? Wouldn't you expect music that utilizes a different compositional basis than most musicians or listeners are familiar with to be rather less popular? Like I said, Schoenberg's music is part of the canon now, and it's unfortunate that you've used your personal dislike of his music to support generalizations about its quality or artistic validity.




> My lack of love for Schoenberg has nothing to do with my assessment of his popularity... or lack thereof... nor am I suggesting that immediate popularity is a measure of artistic merit. On the other hand... might not your personal tastes have influenced your objective appraisal of the opinions of those who don't embrace every aspect of the avant garde... even the avant garde of 100 years ago?


No need to be defensive. I merely asked how you defined popularity in this context, and you've provided no coherent response. You're not presenting anything except vague terms like _embraced_ and _accepted_, and you never bother quantifying phrases like _most orchestral concerts_ or _a great many_ so they would add up to anything more than your odd personal musings.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Odd personal musings? What does that even mean? I thought the purpose of these boards was to share our "odd personal musings," no?

I believe stlukes went into pretty great detail as to what makes Schoenberg such an important and influential figure. He just mentioned he didn't like him--he didn't in any way say that his personal dislike somehow invalidated Schoenberg as a composer, as you seem to suggest he was. Seriously, Anton, you're so obsessed with finding things to disagree with stlukes about that you're completely misrepresenting what he says. It's probably not even intentional, you just _have_ to prove him wrong. I mean, what do you want him to do, an in-depth investigation of ticket sales at Schoenberg shows? Give me a break.

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## JCamilo

It is just Stlukes is the famous gunsman and the young one wants to be famous killing him.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

:Iagree:   :FRlol:  Heck, even I took on stlukes when I first joined. It didn't turn out too well.

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## Anton Hermes

> I mean, what do you want him to do, an in-depth investigation of ticket sales at Schoenberg shows? Give me a break.


At least that would be a step toward supporting asinine statements like _he has failed to resonate with a larger audience_. I asked him what "popularity" and "larger audience" means in this context, and he just ranted about atonality making people uncomfortable. His hate-on for Schoenberg seems derived from that creepy disdain he has for critics and academics who know more than he does. I'm not as inclined as you are to swallow his tired rhetoric, that's all.

I already mentioned that I think it's natural that Schoenberg's twelve-tone work isn't as popular as Mozart or Tchaikovsky; it's only likely to be played by advanced musicians who've learned to play works not in traditional tonality. The music education of most people today doesn't even include the understanding of what dodecaphonic music is, so the audience is at a disadvantage right off the bat. More rational minds would characterize Schoenberg's supposed unpopularity as a reflection of these relevant factors; stlukesguild would have us pretend that there's some meritocracy of the market whereby certain composers are magically "embraced" by the collective imagination of the audience. Believe what you want.

Contrary to stlukesguild's claim that no major orchestra would ever risk commercial suicide by producing an all-Schoenberg program, the Boston Symphony Orchestra did just that. I don't know whether stlukesguild simply doesn't consider the BSO a world class orchestra, or whether such concerts never happen in the weird alternate reality that he inhabits.

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## JCamilo

Ah, those times when the musical education of most people included the knowledge about dodecaphonic music and not just Whistling I, Whistling II and Snapping fingers while walking. We miss it.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> At least that would be a step toward supporting asinine statements like _he has failed to resonate with a larger audience_. I asked him what "popularity" and "larger audience" means in this context, and he just ranted about atonality making people uncomfortable. His hate-on for Schoenberg seems derived from that creepy disdain he has for critics and academics who know more than he does. I'm not as inclined as you are to swallow his tired rhetoric, that's all.
> 
> I already mentioned that I think it's natural that Schoenberg's twelve-tone work isn't as popular as Mozart or Tchaikovsky; it's only likely to be played by advanced musicians who've learned to play works not in traditional tonality. The music education of most people today doesn't even include the understanding of what dodecaphonic music is, so the audience is at a disadvantage right off the bat. More rational minds would characterize Schoenberg's supposed unpopularity as a reflection of these relevant factors; stlukesguild would have us pretend that there's some meritocracy of the market whereby certain composers are magically "embraced" by the collective imagination of the audience. Believe what you want.


The problem is he hasn't been putting down Schoenberg in any other way than saying he doesn't like him (which is for some reason just unacceptable to you). He has discussed his merits, his importance . . . you know what, I don't even know why I'm repeating myself, because you'll just pick out one things you can nitpick about and go with that, ignoring everything else. 

You're right, though: I'll take stluke's tired (tired apparently meaning educational and interesting) rhetoric over your tired argumentative routine any day.




> Contrary to stlukesguild's claim that no major orchestra would ever risk commercial suicide by producing an all-Schoenberg program, the Boston Symphony Orchestra did just that. I don't know whether stlukesguild simply doesn't consider the BSO a world class orchestra, or whether such concerts never happen in the weird alternate reality that he inhabits.


That your Google searches found a whopping one all Schoenberg show doesn't seem like much of "got ya" moment. Also, did you even bother reading the first sentence of the linked article? "Schoenberg does not sell the way Beethoven does, and there was not a full house for the opening night of James Levine's all-Schoenberg program with the Boston Symphony Orchestra." You might want to next time, just to make sure you don't prove stlukes right again.

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## Anton Hermes

> The problem is he hasn't been putting down Schoenberg in any other way than saying he doesn't like him (which is for some reason just unacceptable to you). He has discussed his merits, his importance . . . you know what, I don't even know why I'm repeating myself, because you'll just pick out one things you can nitpick about and go with that, ignoring everything else.


Does it appear that he's only expressing his personal dislike of Schoenberg's music with a question like, _ What do you imagine is the reason that he has failed to resonate with a larger audience?_ At least admit that he doesn't just seem to be saying he doesn't appreciate Schoenberg, if in fact you're interested in fair discussion here.




> You're right, though: I'll take stluke's tired (tired apparently meaning educational and interesting) rhetoric over your tired argumentative routine any day.


Congratulations.





> That your Google searches found a whopping one all Schoenberg show doesn't seem like much of "got ya" moment. Also, did you even bother reading the first sentence of the linked article? "Schoenberg does not sell the way Beethoven does, and there was not a full house for the opening night of James Levine's all-Schoenberg program with the Boston Symphony Orchestra." You might want to next time, just to make sure you don't prove stlukes right again.


He wasn't right. He claimed no major orchestra would risk such commercial suicide, and I only mentioned that the BSO has. But any examples I offer (such as the Musikfest Berlin's production of _Moses und Aron_ last month) are simply the exceptions that prove the rule? How convenient!

Look, I don't know what the guy's hate-on for Schoenberg is about, but it doesn't seem to be about music. In the land of stlukesbelieve, only "music critics and academics" have a high opinion of Schoenberg, and audiences shouldn't be subjected to his music. It's like a toddler whining about having to eat broccoli or something.  :Smilielol5: 

If you can't stand broccoli, dude, don't eat it. But if you launch a crusade to convince us that _there's something wrong with broccoli_, I feel well within my rights to poke fun.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Hyperbole much?

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## Volya

> If you can't stand broccoli, dude, don't eat it. But if you launch a crusade to convince us that _there's something wrong with broccoli_, I feel well within my rights to poke fun.


There is most definitely something wrong with broccoli.

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## Anton Hermes

> There is most definitely something wrong with broccoli.


Take that, self-appointed "experts"!  :Biggrin:

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## Paulclem

The Man Booker prize is announced this month. I wonder whether the arch modernist Will Self will win, or whether it will go to Hilary Mantel. 

I read last year's Booker winner recently - The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. It was an interesting read - light, but with interesting themes of time, memory, misapprehension and guilt.

After some discussions on here about modernism, I thought I'd look it up and give it a go. There seems to be a few facets of modernist literature that qualify it for the label such as experimentation, self consciousness in terms of stylistic presentation and reflection upon our accepted view of life/ time/lives which results in an interesting structure in The Sense of an Ending. 

In effect, the story is told three times - once in a few lines of pre-summary, once as a man reflecting upon the events with the impressions and prejudices from his youth, and once in a revisionist light after discovering facts that weren't revealed at the time. 

I like this self conscious experimentation with structure and narrative. Hilary Mantel's book Bring up the Bodies continues with the story of Henry VIII's Cromwell, and the narrative style is really very interesting. (I haven't read this yet, but it follows on from Wolf Hall, which I found to be a great read). The narrative style brings you directly into Cromwell's consciousnes, and must have taken some crafting to maintain. Will Self, by his own admission, is trying to subvert the omniscient narrator style, and, so I've read, changes narrator and time within the same sentence. I'll have a go at that one too. No doubt I'll learn a few new words given he's such a wordsmith.

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## stlukesguild

Anton... you should probably avoid with the continual assumptions before you make yourself look even more moronic. My "disdain for critics and academics who know more than me?" I've been criticized at this forum God knows how many times for citing this or that critic or academic in a discussion of art or literature. I'm almost used to being called an "academic elitist"... so I must admit that being painted as the "anti-academic" is an intended insult that falls so far from the target that I don't even know how to respond other than to break out into laughter. 

I already mentioned that I think it's natural that Schoenberg's twelve-tone work isn't as popular as Mozart or Tchaikovsky; it's only likely to be played by advanced musicians who've learned to play works not in traditional tonality. The music education of most people today doesn't even include the understanding of what dodecaphonic music is, so the audience is at a disadvantage right off the bat. More rational minds would characterize Schoenberg's supposed unpopularity as a reflection of these relevant factors...

In other words, Schoenberg employed... arguably invented... a musical language that essentially rejected musical elements or vocabulary common to Western music for over 1000 years. Essentially, his break from traditional tonality was as dramatic for music as the abandonment of imagery and the embrace of pure abstraction was for painting. But this "break" occurred 100 years ago. In spite of the passage of a century, Schoenberg's popularity with the classical music audience lags far behind what one might expect would be his due considering his historical importance. But you would like me to site sales statistics to back this up. Of course even if I prove that Schoenberg is not as popular as other composers of equal or lesser historical importance I am in a Catch-22 because all I have proven in that the average classical listener... unlike yourself, no doubt... is but a dim-witted dweeb hooked on "easy" stuff like Mozart and Tchaikovsky... and Wagner, and Bach, and Debussy, etc...

stlukesguild would have us pretend that there's some meritocracy of the market whereby certain composers are magically "embraced" by the collective imagination of the audience. Believe what you want.

What we deem as the "canon" for any art form owes as much to the larger audience of well-informed followers of that specific art form... if not more... as it does to critics, academics, subsequent artists, and other "experts". Undoubtedly, some art works of the greatest merit appeal to but a limited audience. I don't think we can lay the whole fault of this upon the audience. 

With Arnold Schoenberg we are talking about a passage of time of 100 years and an audience that is not exactly ignorant nor closed-minded nor unwilling to explore music beyond the shallow range of the core repertoire. How long do you propose we accept that the limited popularity of a given artist or body of work be deemed as the result of the market? I am glad that some music institutions are willing to take chances in their choice of repertoire. But I question how long the orchestras and other musical institutions owe it to continue to promote a composer that has proven unpopular when there are so many alternative works of music that are rarely performed.

Contrary to stlukesguild's claim that no major orchestra would ever risk commercial suicide by producing an all-Schoenberg program, the Boston Symphony Orchestra did just that. I don't know whether stlukesguild simply doesn't consider the BSO a world class orchestra, or whether such concerts never happen in the weird alternate reality that he inhabits.

Again... it is good to see an orchestra willing to take such chances... but
considering the loss that they took on the concert, I doubt they will be likely to repeat the experiment any time soon. According to the press reviews, over 750 subscribers returned their tickets, and in spite of solid efforts to educate the audience... and the suggestion that "Schoenberg's music must be heard and digested before a determination should be made" (a suggestion that I fully agree with), in the end, these efforts didn't seem to work. By all accounts, the performances were not well attended. 

I don't know what the guy's hate-on for Schoenberg is about, but it doesn't seem to be about music. In the land of stlukesbelieve, only "music critics and academics" have a high opinion of Schoenberg, and audiences shouldn't be subjected to his music.

Welcome to Anton's land of make-believe. I don't recall once stating that I hate Schoenberg. I quite like _Verklärte Nacht, Pelleas und Melisande_, and _Gurrelieder_, and Hillary Hahn's lyrical performance of the _Violin Concerto_ has led me to come around to that piece. I even might get into _Pierrot lunaire_ under the right circumstances... but among the Modernists I am far more likely to enjoy Debussy, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Prokofiev, Shostakovitch, Stravinsky, and Bartók... among others. That amounts to "hatred"?

Honestly, you seem too quick to make assumptions about anyone who disagrees with you or dislikes something that you revere. It is quite possible that some of those who dislike Schoenberg or Damien Hirst or T.S. Eliot Samuel Beckett... or any other Modernist that you embrace (and before you get all excited... don't bother... I actually quite like Eliot and Beckett) are actually not ignorant... or unable to comprehend the work. Unfortunately, the possibility that someone could know as much... or far more than you about any Modern work of art... and still dislike it... seems above your level of comprehension. 

I'm not one who looks to art as a means of proving intellectual superiority to the rest of the world. You on the other hand... seem sadly desperate to prove yourself more sophisticated and experienced than everyone else here. If I were a Freudian, I'd assume an inferiority complex.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> Anton... you should probably avoid with the continual before you make yourself look even more moronic. My "disdain for critics and academics who know more than me?" I've been criticized at this forum God knows how many times for citing this or that critic or academic in a discussion of art or literature. I'm almost used to being called an "academic elitist"... so I must admit that being painted as the "anti-academic" is an intended insult that falls so far from the target that I don't even know how to respond other than to break out into laughter.


Yeah, that definitely had me scratching my head. Stlukes, the anti-academic! We must be in Bizzaro world.

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## Anton Hermes

> Anton... you should probably avoid with the continual before you make yourself look even more moronic. My "disdain for critics and academics who know more than me?"


Well, how else are we supposed to interpret the way you've framed the Schoenberg issue as your fantasy of elite critics and experts shoving the composer's music down the throat of a needlessly suffering public?




> In other words, Schoenberg employed... arguably invented... a musical language that essentially rejected musical elements or vocabulary common to Western music for over 1000 years. Essentially, his break from traditional tonality was as dramatic for music as the abandonment of imagery and the embrace of pure abstraction was for painting. But this "break" occurred 100 years ago. In spite of the passage of a century, Schoenberg's popularity with the classical music audience lags far behind what one might expect would be his due considering his historical importance. But you would like me to site sales statistics to back this up. Of course even if I prove that Schoenberg is not as popular as other composers of equal or lesser historical importance I am in a Catch-22 because all I have proven in that the average classical listener... unlike yourself, no doubt... is but a dim-witted dweeb hooked on "easy" stuff like Mozart and Tchaikovsky... and Wagner, and Bach, and Debussy, etc...


The only thing I questioned is why Schoenberg is defined as "unpopular" and composers like Scriabin, Bartók, or Debussy aren't. I haven't seen many all-Bartók orchestral programs, but I don't inflate this fact into the assertion that there's something wrong with Bartók's music. If Scriabin's work isn't as frequently performed as Mozart's, I don't complain that orchestras should stop annoying audiences with his "failed" music. I still don't know exactly how popular you expect Schoenberg's music to be, or how popular it should be before we consign it to the dumpster. Please explain.




> Undoubtedly, some art works of the greatest merit appeal to but a limited audience. I don't think we can lay the whole fault of this upon the audience.


Statements like this, I assume, are supposed to make it seem like there's something wrong with broccoli, I mean Schoenberg's music. The experts are all wrong, because audiences supposedly don't like it. If this isn't what you mean, you're going to have to be more specific about what you mean.




> With Arnold Schoenberg we are talking about a passage of time of 100 years and an audience that is not exactly ignorant nor closed-minded nor unwilling to explore music beyond the shallow range of the core repertoire. How long do you propose we accept that the limited popularity of a given artist or body of work be deemed as the result of the market? I am glad that some music institutions are willing to take chances in their choice of repertoire. But I question how long the orchestras and other musical institutions owe it to continue to promote a composer that has proven unpopular when there are so many alternative works of music that are rarely performed.


Well, we should probably leave that question to the music directors and musicians who love to perform and record Schoenberg's work. If they think it's worthwhile, I don't see why they should stop performing it. And that goes for any other music they love. 




> Again... it is good to see an orchestra willing to take such chances... but
> considering the loss that they took on the concert, I doubt they will be likely to repeat the experiment any time soon. According to the press reviews, over 750 subscribers returned their tickets, and in spite of solid efforts to educate the audience... and the suggestion that "Schoenberg's music must be heard and digested before a determination should be made" (a suggestion that I fully agree with), in the end, these efforts didn't seem to work. By all accounts, the performances were not well attended.


Once again, in your fantasy world James Levine and the Boston Symphony made a mistake in pushing Schoenberg's failed work, and the subscribers who returned their tickets did so because they're open-minded music lovers just like you. You don't resent being challenged, heaven forbid, you just want to be challenged on your own terms and with music that you already appreciate. 

I think it was a petty thing for the subscribers to do. It's not as if the BSO's entire 2006 season was dedicated to any one composer, let alone Schoenberg. This is a world-class orchestra playing a broad range of work from one of the most influential and respected composers of the twentieth century. I'd be ashamed to be so presumptuous as to pretend that my music knowledge is superior to theirs. Evidently you wouldn't.




> Honestly, you seem too quick to make assumptions about anyone who disagrees with you or dislikes something that you revere. It is quite possible that some of those who dislike Schoenberg or Damien Hirst or T.S. Eliot Samuel Beckett... or any other Modernist that you embrace (and before you get all excited... don't bother... I actually quite like Eliot and Beckett) are actually not ignorant... or unable to comprehend the work. Unfortunately, the possibility that someone could know as much... or far more than you about any Modern work of art... and still dislike it... seems above your level of comprehension.


Now, now. Don't be disingenuous. In the land of stlukesbelieve, it might be mean old Anton bullying you for your informed opinions. In the real world, I'm just trying to stand up for Schoenberg against a glaringly misinformed and unfair trashing. I'm standing with the music directors, experts, and musicians who love Schoenberg and are tired of hearing petty lies about his music and legacy.




> I'm not one who looks to art as a means of proving intellectual superiority to the rest of the world. You on the other hand... seem sadly desperate to prove yourself more sophisticated and experienced than everyone else here. If I were a Freudian, I'd assume an inferiority complex.


What is PROJECTION? Thanks, Alex, I'll stick with psychological defense mechanisms for $400.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Where has stlukes trashed Schoenberg, or suggested he should be "consigned to the dumpster"?

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## Scheherazade

*~

F i n a l___W a r n i n g

Further personal comments will lead to thread closure 

as well as earning those involved infraction points.

~*

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## stlukesguild

The only thing I questioned is why Schoenberg is defined as "unpopular" and composers like Scriabin, or Debussy aren't. 

Based upon the number of available recordings on Amazon, Bartók and Stravinsky are twice as popular as Schoenberg, Debussy is 6 times more popular, while Scriabin... who is a far less "important" composer than any of the above mentioned... ranks about the same as Schoenberg. Of course the number of recordings available is only one means of measure of "popularity" and/or reputation of a classical composer. 

Phil G. Goulding's book, _The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works_ is a good introduction to the world of classical music. Goulding established a list of what he called the "50 Greatest Composers" by tallying various forms of data: number of recordings available by a given composer, playlists and requests for given composers from major classical music radio stations, books available on a given composer, size of entries on a given composer in major music history texts, etc... The resulting list is quite solid. Of course any classical music lover will have disagreements with the ranking... and Goulding admits that there are composers that didn't make the list that he admires far more than some who did. Perhaps, not surprisingly, Schoenberg did not make the list... and yet the other modernists such as Bartók, Debussy, Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky all did. Indeed, Stravinsky made the Top-10 and the others mentioned here all made it into the Top-20. 

If Scriabin's work isn't as frequently performed as Mozart's, I don't complain that orchestras should stop annoying audiences with his "failed" music. 

I wonder how many subscribers rush to return tickets of Scriabin? I also wonder how many orchestras would even think to stage a concert featuring nothing but Scriabin. Of course considering that the majority of his works were composed for solo piano, I don't think that's even an issue. 

Of course the question I raised was "Why is Schoenberg's popularity so minimal... in spite of the concerted efforts of critics and musicians and music institutions over the period of 100 years?" It seems a valid question to ask whether it should be the role of art institutions... especially those receiving public funding... to continue to promote music that is not only of limited popularity... but also highly unpopular with a large segment of the audience. 

Statements like this, I assume, are supposed to make it seem like there's something wrong with broccoli, I mean Schoenberg's music. The experts are all wrong, because audiences supposedly don't like it. If this isn't what you mean, you're going to have to be more specific about what you mean.

You are suggesting that the "experts" themselves are in full agreement... which you know fully well is far from the truth. Schoenberg remains a controversial figure. There are any number of soloist and conductors who want nothing to do with his music. But at the same time... you seem to presume that the "experts" are some infallible prophets bringing the voice of God down to the ignorant masses. The idea that the audience is irrelevant to art is the reason that a lot of art has become irrelevant to the audience. 

Well, we should probably leave that question to the music directors and musicians who love to perform and record Schoenberg's work. If they think it's worthwhile, I don't see why they should stop performing it. And that goes for any other music they love. 

You aren't really that naive, are you? Do you honestly imagine that audience demand (which translates into dollars) has no impact upon what music gets performed and recorded?

Once again, in your fantasy world James Levine and the Boston Symphony made a mistake in pushing Schoenberg's failed work, and the subscribers who returned their tickets did so because they're open-minded music lovers just like you. 

How am I living in a "fantasy world"? I am suggesting that the bottom-line: sales figures... play a major role in the decisions made by arts institutions each and every day. You are suggesting the opposite. I wonder how many here would have any difficulty with discerning just which of us is living in fantasy land?

You don't resent being challenged, heaven forbid, you just want to be challenged on your own terms and with music that you already appreciate. 

Please... enough of the assumptions. They only serve to undermine any scrap of credibility you might still have. I have been listening to Classical music for some 20+ years and have amassed a personal library of some 3000+ recordings that range from Byzantine chants to the works of living composers. 

I think it was a petty thing for the subscribers to do. It's not as if the BSO's entire 2006 season was dedicated to any one composer, let alone Schoenberg. 

I would agree that it would have been an ignorant thing to do for those not really familiar with Schoenberg's work. However, I don't imagine that the audience owes it to the orchestra or the composer to spend their money and time on something they dislike.

This is a world-class orchestra playing a broad range of work from one of the most influential and respected composers of the twentieth century. I'd be ashamed to be so presumptuous as to pretend that my music knowledge is superior to theirs. Evidently you wouldn't.

No... I don't look to the "experts" as the infallible arbiters of what I "should" like. Do you enjoy Schoenberg because some "expert" told you it was "good"? And if their opinion was the reverse... you would "dislike" it? I will certainly put forth the effort to understand and appreciate art that has achieved a certain recognition, in spite of my initial reservations. I fully acknowledge that there may indeed be something of the greatest merit to an artist whose work I don't enjoy when he or she is has attained a certain level of recognition within the field... but this doesn't mean that I must like the work. I see no problem with the subscribers thinking to themselves, "Schoenberg... hmmm... very influential... one of the most important Modernist composers... but I really don't like it. Let's see if I can trade in my tickets for the performance of Brahms and Rachmaninoff next week."

Now, now. Don't be disingenuous. In the land of stlukesbelieve, it might be mean old Anton bullying you for your informed opinions. In the real world, I'm just trying to stand up for Schoenberg against a glaringly misinformed and unfair trashing. I'm standing with the music directors, experts, and musicians who love Schoenberg and are tired of hearing petty lies about his music and legacy.

Oh please! :Rolleyes5:  The defender of the poor, abused Modernists... standing in solidarity with all those lovers of poop in a can. :Biggrin:

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## prendrelemick

> Will Self, by his own admission, is trying to subvert the omniscient narrator style, and, so I've read, changes narrator and time within the same sentence. I'll have a go at that one too. No doubt I'll learn a few new words given he's such a wordsmith.




In fact he's doing a Schoenberg.

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## Paulclem

> In fact he's doing a Schoenberg.


Is that the Schoenberg who had a big influence on music? In what way is he like Will Self. I confess to a big ignorence about music.

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## prendrelemick

According to the learned posts above, he too tried to subvert his chosen art form.

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