What do you think of Jackson Pollock?

[LabelKing]

What Garry Winogrand responded when an interviewer asked him what art was: Often enough, the picture plays with the question of what actually is happening. Almost the way puns function. They call the meaning of things into question. You know, why do you laugh at a pun? Language is basic to all of our existences in this world. We depend on it. So a pun calls the meaning of a word into question, and it upsets us tremendously. We laugh because suddenly we find out we're not going to get killed.

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

I don't think entertainment and art are mutually exclusive. I can't think of any examples off-hand from the visual arts, but there are plenty of examples from music and dance.

--Andre

I've always found Mark Tansey's work amusing. Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" is a pretty damn entertaining painting. I've always found Bacon's Study After Velasquez's Pope Innocent X funny, although I'm not sure everyone would agree.

 

[LabelKing]

Francis Bacon is the perfect at-home painter. Everything he did is ideal for the Home.

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

Francis Bacon is the perfect at-home painter. Everything he did is ideal for the Home.

But it's hard to find a couch that goes well with those strong colors.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

But it's hard to find a couch that goes well with those strong colors.

I'm thinking a light mocha suede.

 

[designprofessor]

As for the definition of art, I think this is a bit of a moving target.
I'd rather keep some of the mystery intact. I rather like the suprises sometimes.However, looking back through history we can apply criteria to establish values, interpretations, and working definitions.

I think if an artist, sets out to make art, and establish that objective for the work, then it is art. We can thank Duchamp to some degree for this. Problem with that is anything goes. I think this clarifies the intent and widens the possibility for change.

On the Pollock /Caravaggio:
As far as assuming there must be some technical skill to validate what is art, that's problematic also. I think the comparison between Caravaggio and Rothko is misguided in that they are two different approaches.
Most of the Abstract Expressionists was pretty intent on NOT using the traditional visual vocabulary of painting in their work. So the fact that one doesn't look like the Caravaggio means they succeeded.
I think people feel duped because it (Rothko) looks simplistic.

My last point is that the discussion gets a bit more heated with abstract art when they see these enormous prices attached to it.
People begin to suspect a scam. True, there is alot of foul play in the art market, but lets not think that anything produced will automatically find a buyer or a believer.
And with all this, posterity may come back and look at the work and reach a different conclusion all together.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by designprofessor

As far as assuming there must be some technical skill to validate what is art, that's problematic also.

I think technique is relevant to art only to the extent that it holds back what the artist is trying to do. Beyond that, it's completely irrelevant.

--Andre

 

[rpatrick]

Hey, we own that!

By "we" I mean the National Gallery in Ottawa.

Oh I remember the HUGE kerfuffle when it paid something like $2 million for it about 15 years ago. Don't suppose it's worth a little more now?

I like it by the way.

One of my fave under-the radar artists is Bridget Riley, who does op-art. I've used one of her pieces as my avatar.

Originally Posted by eg1

So, um, how long would you have to hang around to grok this?

Barnett Newman's Voice of Fire ...

 

[DocHolliday]

Originally Posted by designprofessor

As for the definition of art, I think this is a bit of a moving target.
I'd rather keep some of the mystery intact. I rather like the suprises sometimes.However, looking back through history we can apply criteria to establish values, interpretations, and working definitions.

If think if an artist, sets out to make art, and establish that objective for the work, then it is art. We can thank Duchamp to some degree for this. Problem with that is anything goes. I think this clarifies the intent and widens the possibility for change.

I tend to agree. It's all art. It's just that there's a lot of really bad art. Even here, Sturgeon's law holds true: 90 percent of everything is crud.

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by j

Also, a lot of definitions of art seem to require that the work generally be for its own purposes only, and not primarily "useful" (this being a craft, or "design"). Does that explain why most "art films" are not entertaining in the least? Does that mean that an entertaining film cannot be "art"?

Films are almost never "useful" anyway (some are, think educational videos) but there's a sometimes subtle difference between art and entertainment that's like the one between a pornographic images and an "artistic" nudes; as Potter Stewart once said "I know it when I see it". I recently acquired Tokyo lucky hole by the amazing Nobuyoshi Araki and I'm sure some people would view it as a porno book while I and countless others believe it is an important work of photographic art. Intent and context are really two ways that are very helpful in determining what is art and isn't (think Duchamp urinal), but I must repeat once again that classifying something as art is exactly that; a classification, not a judgment of value. I was at a Bruce Nauman expo today and honestly do not connect with his neon displays and video installations (too directional and literal, hey I'll talk about fear and pain by having a neon sign saying "fear" then "pain") while I like his more complex and ambiguous installations (One hundred fish fountain or his re contextualized objects). However I'm not going to argue that what Nauman produces is not art, no matter how much I may dislike some of his pieces.

To come back to art movies, think about the difference between literature (the written word for its own sake, without an attempt to meet audience expectations) and paraliterature (genre literature) where you have to follow some specific conventions that are requirements that the audience literally demands (a romance novel has some set events, including contested romance and torrid love scenes, that have to be there no matter how you play with the variables). Art movies would be like literature while pure entertainment ones, where the payoff is expected, is more genre than anything else. It gets somewhat confusing when you realize that my favourite movies are probably genre movies where the audience expectations are twisted in a way that makes them rise above pure entertainment, something that could probably be classified as being in the contested territory between art and entertainment.

That wasn't especially useful in a straight up way, but "getting art" is an iterative process where your (and mine) old definitions get shattered all the time in favour of more appropriate ones that reflect the current art zeitgeist.

 

[eg1]

I detect an awful lot of what the New Criticism would identify as the "intentional fallacy" in this discussion of what, exactly, constitutes art -- that the author's intention is somehow privileged.

I think that much of the confusion over art, and especially non-representative art or "shock art", is that you have diferent tribes talking past one another using entirely different languages and assuming different contexts -- like Culler's "interpretive communities". Nonetheless, I like the dialogue (or attempts at dialogue) because they are in and of themselves illuminating.

 

[spertia]

Originally Posted by rpatrick

One of my fave under-the radar artists is Bridget Riley, who does op-art. I've used one of her pieces as my avatar.

I love Bridget Riley -- not only her iconic op-art pieces but also her later, more colorful geo-abstract work.

 

[Artisan Fan]

Originally Posted by spertia

I love Bridget Riley -- not only her iconic op-art pieces but also her later, more colorful geo-abstract work.

They make those arrows in PowerPoint also.

 

[Bergdorf Goodwill]

Endless threads about "What is art, man?" and religious faith so quickly? StyleForum has entered a period of junior high contemplation. I suggest a return to douchebag contests.

 

[eg1]

Originally Posted by Bergdorf Goodwill

Endless threads about "What is art, man?" and religious faith so quickly? StyleForum has entered a period of junior high contemplation. I suggest a return to douchebag contests.

We give up -- you win!