Yes, what it betrays is that in my translation of “universal,” I was thinking of an upper-middle class or upper-class North American social milieu. Certainly that phrase can come from others in other settings, and even from others in the setting that I was thinking about.
And that’s your argument to make, not the one I was responding to. The argument I was responding to (the video) says that if its not like x*, it is not art.
*(where x is what I consider art)
Most art doesn’t get celebrated. Does it fail as art?
Seems to me that if a gallery will display shit in a can (not for free of course) and somebody else will buy shit in a can, then attacking shit in a can as art functions as a way to maintain the legitimacy, not of a purer form of art, but of the players of the art world who trade in Monet’s and cans of shit.
well, theoretically, women of color who produce art meeting “universal” standards are to be celebrated. The alternatives are not always so friendly towards women
Sounds like a Lyndon LaRouche cult-rant on ideologically acceptable art and media.
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Yes, theoretically.And even when their art meets different standards. Funny, then (and worse than sad), how their work so often isn’t celebrated.
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I think I realise now that there are two separate threads here - one is the legitimacy of a particular form of art, which is mostly an intellectual exercise.
The second seems to be what everyone (or at least, I) finds laughable - the utter lack of discernment in the art world which doesn’t know how to distinguish between an art object and a plinth. To an ordinary person, putting a rectangular piece of wood on display as the winner in a contest seems absurd. It’s not that someone created it, it’s that someone else - someone with decision making power - considers it a piece of art on par with (or even above) the “real” art object. The same sentiment was expressed in the video in terms of the “Pollock apron”.
As someone who’s been involved in documenting 1500 year old paintings in extremely delicate conditions, I can sympathise. Just reproducing is tough, and though we put all our efforts in the public domain (for us, it’s a labour of love for our own heritage), I understand that a pro may not feel the same way.
On the other hand, I spent a pretty enjoyable afternoon at the Louvre clicking away to my heart’s content at anything that caught my fancy. They seem to be happy to allow you to shoot, and I didn’t try to bring a tripod or any other equipment. That’s been my experience with most museums actually (though there may be a camera fee, which I’m perfectly willing to pay).
Um, my own experience may be a bit lacking here, but I generally associate the whole relativism in art movement with that particular class of people - both in Europe and North America. I’d have said that artistic conservatism is a bit lower down - middle class mostly? Am I wrong in that assumption?
I’m trying to expand the argument a bit from what was presented in the video (which I think is very narrow and even a bit extreme). It’s not an easy question, but it’s one worth exploring, anyhow…
Conversely, just because it became celebrated, does it legitimise it as art?
I don’t follow - how does attacking it maintain its legitimacy?
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As usual, the glaring rarity of this expensive exception merely proves the rule.
I’m not sure how a universal aesthetics could really be applied to art, but in classical music (performance). it has had an equalizing effect.
Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of ‘Blind’ Auditions on Female Musicians
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You’re missing the point. If anything can be art, then is is accessible by everyone. I don’t have to go to MoMA to see great art and design, I can see it in every day objects around me. I can take and frame a view around me and see an interesting composition. The design of that new gadget may be inspiring (which is why MoMA had a whole level dedicated to the design of objects when I was there.)
The Modern Art movement ironically gave legitimacy to folk art and non-traditional artists as well as street artists. Art is all around you, find its beauty and enjoy it.
I didn’t know you were psychic and could tell the care, motive, and feelings of the artists. That is awesome. If you ever watched Pollack paint he clearly has a plan and is trying hard to execute it. Again, many have tried to replicate Pollack, but his work wasn’t simply lazily splashing color around.
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Exactly, it’s not even the usual conservative diploma mills but Conservapedia for vloggers.
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And BB just posted a book on Mitch O’Conner. Why are they posting that garbage if it doesn’t adhere to classical Universal Standard of Beauty.
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That is something I can definitely get behind and push!
To be perfectly honest, I just don’t see it. I watched the video and I still don’t see it. It’s just some guy with a canvas on the floor, splashing paint all around and ending up with what looks like an explosion in a paint factory. Now, maybe that’s just because I’m not initiated into the ways of this kind of art, but I submit to you, if one needs some special initiation to see the clothes, maybe the emperor really is naked…
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Yes, those blind auditions are an interesting connection! It mostly serves, though, to underline for me how in the visual arts world (and actually, in that of classical music composers, and of literature, and etc.), the Great Artist himself (too often a white man) is right there in mind with the art. Conceptually, they exist together. For many, Great Art, it seems, simply must spring from a (white male) Genius. A painting that looks just like a Rothko is practically worthless if it’s not actually a Rothko. And so, to work further with your connection, I doubt the Art World will ever enshrine works via blind, that is, anonymous, submission.
He isn’t randomly slopping on paint. There is a purpose. Many have tried to replicate Pollacks and find it much harder to do than it appears. It is also why someone with only a modest knowledge of art history could tell that apron in the video wasn’t a Pollack.
Traditional painting is just dabbing on color. It’s only the order and outcome that makes abstract expressionism, or impressionist, or something more classical.
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I am European. We don’t do the American kind of football. Once in a while I end up watching anyway because it’s the Super Bowl or whatever. It leaves me entirely cold. I just don’t get it. I even read up on the rules at some point.
Now, are they just dicking around, because if there was any point to what they are doing, then I would surely appreciate the greatness? Or is it possible that I am just missing too much of the right background and it goes over my head?
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The same pointlessness is there with soccer and hockey. You saw one match, you saw them all. I suspect there was only one match of each taped for TV aeons ago, and now that prototype match is just being rebroadcast over and over.
And regardless, there are hordes of “fans” eager to lynch anybody who speaks up about the spectator sport value, or, especially, about the value of The One Holy Team (whose identity keeps varying depending on who you ask).
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This boils down to the Courtier’s Reply - the idea that you need to be part of a certain elite to understand. In this case, the elite who has a “modest knowledge of art history” - note that it’s only one very specific strand of art history, not the history of all art al around the world, even in the 20th century.
Oh come now! There’s a ton more to the use of colour in painting - there’s light and shadow, there’s depth, there’s the emotive content of different colours,… This is exactly what I meant elsewhere when I said that modern art belittles all art!
I don’t get American football either, but I can easily see that it’s a sport with some rules to it. The equivalent would be to say that “all sport is relative, all rules are subjective, therefore Football (whether Soccer or American) is the same as Calvinball.” When put that way, the argument gets coloured very differently, don’t you think?
Random thought. What about sneaking in a hidden camera, making lots (hundreds or more) of noisy, short-exposure (to avoid motion blur), underexposed, relatively high resolution, relatively low-quality pictures from different angles, then later stack them together in software and reconstruct the image?
Human eye is an awful crap, optics-wise. Name a fault and it is there. The magic is in image postprocessing.
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I think it depends on the type of exhibition you have in mind. If you are doing contemporary art, then anon may be the best option. If you are doing one of the development of a specific art movement, then anon+year or anon+year+region of origin might be doable. I think there’s also the whole issue with the antiquities market, etc.
