art is cool ... discuss..

[softgrey]

this is the art version of the etc etc thread...

post random thoughts, ideas and quotes you have about art

 

[adorefaith]

cool idea softie..

i went to the graduate show for one of the best art school's here in sydney the other day..
and some of the installations were really bizarre...interesting..but bizarre...
my friend and i were walking down one of the outdoor hallways to the next area of the exhibition and there was this fire hose attached to the wall with the cord all mixed up...and some paint splattered on it...
she turned to me and said 'is this part of it?'...dead serious..

i couldnt stop laughing....*it wasnt part of it..obviously..
but then i started thinking..you know what?..it's NOT that obvious..
with 'modern' art these days...some of the works are exactly like the fire hose on the wall....everyday objects used in new and / or different ways..
and sometimes if it didnt have a little sticker with the artist's name and the work's title, you'd have no idea what WAS and what WASNT art...

so maybe EVERYTHING is art...in a way...
or could be art...if you viewed it that way...you know?..

 

[adorefaith]

**another thought i had after this same exhibition...

after we'd spent hours walking around..this friend said to me 'i dont like a lot of this stuff..it's too morbid....so indulgent...it's just like an excuse for the person to get their anger / sadness out...'

it was an interesting perpsective...and it made me think...
what does everyone think about that?...do you like art that has a really personal perspective and is obviously the product of a person's emotional expression?....or do you think it is indulgent?...

should art be an emotional outlet?..

i tend to think thats exactly why i like so much art...because it is the product of someone's feelings, beliefs, emotions, fears, etc..
it is such a vulnerable thing to put all of that onto canvas or into a photograph etc...and i tend to think it's brave, rather than indulgent, to let it out and then share it with the world....
my friend, however, was a bit depressed by it all...some of the art was very clearly coming from someone who felt angry, depressed, etc...and she thought it just seemed like the product of teenage angst rather than serious art...

after thinking about it, i could see her perspective...but i'd never really thought of it as a BAD thing before..

 

[gius]

^
it makes me think about this giant mound of strange rusted metal pipes at my school
it's right next to the art studios, so i always assume it's maybe an art piece
but it might not be
actually most of the sculptures outside the studios blend totally with nature-- i admit i never noticed them till i had to stand there for some time, waiting for somebody... and i noticed the shapes of a lot of the sculptures weren't quite 'natural'

<<second topic>>
even for little things, i don't like showing pieces of 'art' or any thing that i've made particularly in class. it's like it gets judged in that environment. plus i have to explain it
i think it totally ruins it
my friend sometimes draws these girls that look a bit melancholy and she gets annoyed when people ask her why she draws them, and if she is feeling sad because she is drawing 'sad' girls... but she just wants to stress the beauty of that emotion, i suppose. there's no special meaning behind it, it's just a visual thing, it's not something to explain...

sometimes there is a kind of beauty in dark things...
if you react too quickly, it's a bit ignorant i'd say

 

[Diamond Star]

These Picasso quotes were the first thing I thought of when I read your post Softie:
"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."
"You know, music, art - these are not just little decorations to make life prettier. They're very deep necessitites which people cannot live without"

 

[ChrissyM]

going off of what gius said about the 'sad' girls and your friend constantly being asked about how she was feeling when she drew them..
i think the more important thing is not to ask what the artist was thinking..
but how YOU feel when you look upon them..
do you see the beauty in the emotion..
does it tug at you positively or negatively...

there is always SO much to take away..
whether you sit there wondering what the artist was thinking, or what you're thinking..
i think it's important to draw your own initial conclusions before reading any sort of artist statement..
you don't want to taint or influence your own ideas with the artist's thought and motivations imo..
if that make sense.. at least not initially..
let your mind wander and come up with your own conclusions...
it's far more interesting and intriguing to do that.. to continue wondering...
then it is to come away with a solid conclusion that will make you forget about the piece in the next moment..

 

[adorefaith]

i agree with that chrissy...although i do think that after you have formed your own ideas and perceptions, it is often interesting and really illuminating to understand where the artist was coming from....what their ideas, inspirations and motivations were..
i think you implied this in your post...

and sometimes that understanding is a catalyst for further thinking and feeling of your own, you know?..
it gives you more food for thought...new ways to understand the work...
and maybe then you walk away with a new perspective...more open minded than when you first saw it..

i think art is like that...it's a process...obviously sometimes you love or hate something right off the bat and your feelings dont change..
but more often than not i really think it's a process that needs time...like layers of an onion!....excuse the over-used analogy but its so true i think....as you sit with it, new things reveal themselves...you become aware of new perspectives, new feelings, etc...and learning about the artist's perspective is just one more little piece to the puzzle that can shed light on the artwork i think..

 

[masquerade]

I understand what you mean gius, about the visual thing. I'm not much of an artist, at all. I'm a studio art minor simply because I enjoy it and there are a lot of classes that overlap with my art history major to begin with. anyway, whenever i make pieces, i don't really think about meaning, at least when im making them. I just think about form and aesthetics and what is interesting to me visually. Which is weird because I love conceptual art which I always take to be the total opposite of that. The meaning is the most important. So i guess i like it, just not when I am doing it

 

[softgrey]

i agree with that chrissy...although i do think that after you have formed your own ideas and perceptions, it is often interesting and really illuminating to understand where the artist was coming from....what their ideas, inspirations and motivations were..
i think you implied this in your post...

and sometimes that understanding is a catalyst for further thinking and feeling of your own, you know?..
it gives you more food for thought...new ways to understand the work...
and maybe then you walk away with a new perspective...more open minded than when you first saw it..

i think art is like that...it's a process...obviously sometimes you love or hate something right off the bat and your feelings dont change..
but more often than not i really think it's a process that needs time...like layers of an onion!....excuse the over-used analogy but its so true i think....as you sit with it, new things reveal themselves...you become aware of new perspectives, new feelings, etc...and learning about the artist's perspective is just one more little piece to the puzzle that can shed light on the artwork i think..

i ALWAYS want to to know as much about the artist as possible...
not just about the actual piece i am curently viewing...
but about the artist themselves and their entire body of work...
and how this one piece fits into the big picture...

i once heard-
'a writer writes for himself, and not for you'...
a LOT of art is like this...

*is it self-indulgent ?....OF COURSE it is...
it is all about the artist and THEIR point of view....

i think what separates the great artists from the average or mediocre ones is that they have something new or interesting to communicate...
OR they have found an original way to communicate an otherwise unoriginal idea...

*is it a form of therapy?...most definitely ....
i think great artists always put a piece of themselves in their work...
it's how they deal with reality and their emotions...
how they communicate ideas, etc...

a great artist will develop his own language...
and it's always fun for me to see if i can 'speak' their language...
of course some are easier for me to understand than others...
because i may share more of an aesthetic or point of view with certain artists..
but i always always want to know what the original intention of the artist is...

*sometimes i think we can only infer the artist's intentions based on their personal history and body of work...
because very often...their intentions cannot be put into words...
which is the very reason they have not chosen to become writers but visual artist instead...

it is said...
'a picture's worth a thousand words'...
how true is that!?!?!...

*my favourite art exhibits are retrospectives....
i see as many of these as i can...
it's so amazing to see the evolution of the artist and to see the whole body of work gathered together in one place like that...
that's when i can usually hear the 'voice' of the artist most clearly...

 

[ChrissyM]

adore and soft i agree with both of you actually..
despite what i wrote in my first post in here (which i think i also still believe )

adorefaith it's kind of like you could see into my head...
i got so into describing the first part..
coming up with your own conclusions and gleaning your own insights...
that i forgot i wanted to make a second point about finding out about the artist..

chances are you're often not going to find something that says "this piece was inspired by the time when I blah blah blah"...
but what softgrey said about learning about the artist's life and their experiences etc..
can definitely add SO much to how you interpret and perceive their work..

i feel like i'm being a bit contradictory considering what i said earlier..
maybe i'm just coming around a bit more after adore and soft's arguments..
and i've also had more time to think on it as the day goes on..

when it comes to something like a retrospective i think it is definitely soo important to know as much about the artist as possible and that can enrich the experience on such a high level...
i remember going to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and his work was displayed chronologically...
which is exactly how i think it should be..
seeing the work like that really enhanced it because the progression of his talent, his insanity and the other influences in his life were so prominent in his work when it was viewed in that way...

i feel like i want to go to a museum very soon!
retrospectives are definitely the best

 

[adorefaith]

i actually dont think you're contradicting yourself at all chrissy..
i am understanding you perfectly..

and i think your first post implied that an artist's perspective is of course important..
but you were stressing the idea that as an audience, we not be afraid to first form our OWN perceptions and ideas without being clouded simply by what the artist intended..(because..after all....you can come away with a whole lot of realisations, insights and feelings that the artist could have never dreamed up or imagined...)

and THEN, once we have had the freedom to figure out what we think and how we feel, we can turn to the artist and bring in their ideas, influences, whole body of work etc..
this is what you meant, no?....it's what i got from your first post at least..
..

i agree with soft in this respect...i love to know as much as i can about an artist and what perspective they're coming from..
not only what they intended to express with any particular work, but also about their life as a whole...their upbringing, influences, history, etc..
but i do agree with you too that we have to be careful not to let any one particular perspective or idea stop us from coming up with our own...

speaking of retrospectives..
i am going to see the sidney nolan retrospective at the art gallery of NSW this afternoon..
should be interesting..

 

[ChrissyM]

yes adorefaith... exactly

i'm glad that what i meant to articulate actually came through..
you summed it up really well

let us know your impressions and any new insights when you return!

 

[BerlinRocks]

first "art is cool" is not really fair...
esp. when you know tonight i'll have to read some Paul Ardenne... he's good and ok and not that complicated... but honestly my brain is already suffering...

second...
i like what i'm reading some good points for people writing...

*my favourite art exhibits are retrospectives....

for my part i prefer collective shows.... when, of course, the aim of the exhibition is managed...
the last one and very good I saw were Le Printemps de Septembre... and Uncertain States of America...I kind of love Hans Ulrich O.
retrospectives can be really boring.... but if the lecture the curator does is interesting... why not... but honestly i like it more when it's confronted to other artists... you can have a better view, a better judgement....
but that's my opinion...

 

[Guessgirl96]

Honestly I'm tired of a lot of modern art, I feel like I'm in the emperor's new clothes. Someone vomits on a canvas and everyone ooh's and aah's. I know art is what you make of it but some really abuse this. I see some strange blob with a deep meaning and I just think... lighten up.

 

[luckyme]

^ not to be a cynic but how is this different then Balenciaga these days? does everyone really get his vision or is it just because "art is cool"?

 

[Guessgirl96]

It's different for me because I really like a lot of he does, and something like the r2d2 collection I can recognize that it takes talent to make, but I can make lots of modern art I see and I dont have artistic talent.

 

[gius]

i dunno, it's different when you have to actually make it
we have to do this kind of art in school
contemporary art these days is often 'conceptual art'
it places importance on the idea
so when you have to explain abstract concepts like culture or emotions, you will use for example certain brushstrokes or colours to convey those ideas/feelings... it's kind of like symbolism, metaphors

i don't think it should be taken so seriously
it's really just another way of creating art

but i can totally understand. i had my own stigma about it too

 

[gius]

oh that leads me to this idea that i hear often, even from artists
that art is something about skill
if anyone can make it, does it mean it's not art?

frankly for me if i like it, if the colours are nice, if the composition is nice, it's art .. it's nice... it's enough for me
in this sense, i feel design + art are equals

 

[adorefaith]

frankly for me if i like it, if the colours are nice, if the composition is nice, it's art .. it's nice... it's enough for me

i completely agree here gius..
if it moves me in some way, or it's beautiful, or it's provocative, or it's some form of expression, then it's enough for me..it qualifies as art..
that's not to deny that there can be and certainly is skill involved...to varying degrees i suppose...
and i suppose sometimes it's hard to understand how you can walk into a gallery and see a black canvas with a big white stripe down the middle and then walk around the corner and see some intricate and incredible renaissance painting...but i dont think that means that modern art isnt art...

on a different but somehow related note..
did anyone see the documentary "my kid could paint that?"..
ive been meaning to...it looks fascinating...

 

[masquerade]

It's different for me because I really like a lot of he does, and something like the r2d2 collection I can recognize that it takes talent to make, but I can make lots of modern art I see and I dont have artistic talent.

im entirely the opposite. im sick of people thinking that just because you perfect chiaroscuro and can do intricate surface details you have artistic talent. I find art before 1800 to be, as a whole, soulless. Around that time is really when the concept of art as we know it came about, with galleries and museums. Prior to that art was thought of in an entirely different way, hell the ancient greeks didn't even have a word for art or a concept of art as we do today, it was lumped in with crafts like forging. Of course there are exceptions, but they generally were commissioned by people who became artists simply because that is where they ended up apprenticing. Modern and Contemporary art is art for art's sake, and I appreciate the artistic vision behind that far more than the 5 millionth painted representation of the annunciation. Thats not to say i don't respect art with fine details, a lot of the surrealists did fantastic details which just enhanced the surreal scene they were presenting. now i just feel like im rambling though.

and to gius, whenever someone looks at a piece and says "a child could do that" or "thats not art, i could do it" i always answer with "well you didn't" Anyone could do what Jackson Pollock did in theory, but they didn't, he did. Anyone could do what Barbara Kruger does in theory, but she did, they didn't. I think skill goes beyond technique.

eta: I haven't seen that documentary but I want to. At the same time I think it would infuriate me.