Art that people rave about that's actually shit.

[ViolentPanda]

But what's the point of that in the age of photography?

It's a different form of representation - with a painting you (at least until the advent of photography) reproduce a representation from either memory or imagination. With a photo, while what you do in post-production and/or in the darkroom can alter it, it can be a more "concrete" representation of "the real".

 

[Blagsta]

Yes, it's the rest of the world who know nothing. The chosen few are the only people who can understand and appreciate a white square on a white background.



It isn't a realistic painting. it's an artist's impression.
Find me a photo as good as that painting and I might change my mind.

Right, so art is about interpretation.

Photography is also interpretation. Composition, exact moment the shutter is pressed, decisions in the darkroom etc. All interpretations.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Oak tables are not representations of something else.

Except representations of what an oak tree can become if it gets in with the wrong crowd.

 

[Blagsta]

It's a different form of representation - with a painting you (at least until the advent of photography) reproduce a representation from either memory or imagination. With a photo, while what you do in post-production and/or in the darkroom can alter it, it can be a more "concrete" representation of "the real".

Not entirely true is it. Painters would often use subjects, if not directly or from sketches of subjects.

 

[ViolentPanda]

it can be, by accident. photographers aren't artists though.

Because photography is a technical discipline?

 

[Pickman's model]

an oak table cannot be art because, as oscar wilde said, all art is utterly useless.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not entirely true is it. Painters would often use subjects, if not directly or from sketches of subjects.

True. For example Rembrandt and Caravaggio were both legendary for their use of live models in the studio, but even so, I'd say that their work was more mediated - by the demands of patrons and by their own intentions with regard to the finished piece - than photography mostly was (alythough the advent of digital modification has thrown that up in the air, in my opinion).

 

[ViolentPanda]

chess is the purest artform.

Pfft. Go.

 

[ViolentPanda]

When people use the word pretentious they are hardly ever talking about taste or aesthetic sensibility. It is a mask for a deep and profound ignorance and fear of what they dont understand. It says much more about you than your taste.

I'd disagree with that. To me, expecting people to share artistic sensibilities, is like expecting all men called Gordon to be nonces - it doesn't happen. That it doesn't happen isn't down to some supposed perceptual deficit on the part of the person who doesn't "get it", it's down to the fact that we're the sum of our influences and experiences.

Music is never just a bunch of noises.

Have you listened to Antheil's "Ballet Mecanique"?

Books are never just words on a page. Art is never just blobs of paint. Ever. What a tiny world you must live in.

Or perhaps it's a massive world, full of differences and shades of opinion, and that's a fact worth celebrating?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Oh fuck off with that patronising crap. "Oh look at me with my deep understanding, you plebs just don't get it".

To be scrupulously fair, the same could be said of whenever you sound off from your Skeptic chair.

 

[ViolentPanda]

"Something" crept into the "art world" in the last century. The artist suddenly became more important than the work.
A culture of personality evolved and it seems that now it is all about the name...it's all about the "artist"

A cult of personality didn't really evolve. It was developed, often by Gallery owners and collectors, for very obvious reasons.
Look at most well-known 20th-century artists, and behind 2/3rds of them stands a gallery or patron who, by the act of collecting and/or exhibiting, promotes the artist and their work, and it's the "and" that is important, because it allows the patron to validate their possession of "art-work" through reference (IMO often spurious) to the artist's sensibilities and intentions.

 

[ska invita]

$87,000,000

Those Rothkos are an art fail, seemingly self acknowledged by him

This is the effect he intended these painting to have:

The following June, Rothko and his family again traveled to Europe. While on the SS Independence he disclosed to John Fischer, publisher of Harper's Magazine, that his true intention for the Seagram murals was to paint "something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room...." He hoped, he told Fischer, that his painting would make the restaurant's patrons "feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up, so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the wall."

then

Once back in New York, Rothko and wife Mell visited the near-completed Four Seasons restaurant. Upset with the restaurant's dining atmosphere, which he considered pretentious and inappropriate for the display of his works, Rothko refused to continue the project and returned his cash advance to the Seagram and Sons Company. Seagram had intended to honor Rothko's emergence to prominence through his selection, and his breach of contract and public expression of outrage were unexpected.

So he made them to piss off and create a sense of doom amongst the rich diners, then its sounds like once he saw how in situ they were little more than inoffensive corporate art he pulled them and gave the money back (fair dos).

Nice try in pissing these people off, but didnt quite work. I guess its a bit like Warhols Electric Chair screenprints which were a test to see what horrors rich people could be duped into paying for and putting on their walls

 

[Blagsta]

True. For example Rembrandt and Caravaggio were both legendary for their use of live models in the studio, but even so, I'd say that their work was more mediated - by the demands of patrons and by their own intentions with regard to the finished piece - than photography mostly was (alythough the advent of digital modification has thrown that up in the air, in my opinion).

Photography has always been mediated.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Tracy Emin. What a load of rubbish.

To be fair, I feel the same about a lot of conceptual art, but I accept that may be due to me not "getting" the premises of conceptual art, or not wanting to get the premises of conceptual art - to me, while an unmade bed may well be a layering of the personal history of the artist, it just looks like an unmade bed with spunky sheets!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Photography has always been mediated.

Hence my use of the term "more mediated" with regard to painting.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The increasing status of artists was a Renaissance thing though?

Tied in with patronage - visible and ostentatious patronage.

 

[Dillinger4]

I'd disagree with that. To me, expecting people to share artistic sensibilities, is like expecting all men called Gordon to be nonces - it doesn't happen. That it doesn't happen isn't down to some supposed perceptual deficit on the part of the person who doesn't "get it", it's down to the fact that we're the sum of our influences and experiences.

I don't expect everyone to share the same artistic sensibilities. That would be dull. Differences are exciting. I was making a point about the use of the word 'pretentious'.

Have you listened to Antheil's "Ballet Mecanique"?

Yes but the fact that it has a name and is defined by a certain order of random noises, that it was created as part of a wider movement means it is more than the sum of its parts, more than just a collection of random noises, which it is. This can said for any human creation. It is always more than it is.

Or perhaps it's a massive world, full of differences and shades of opinion, and that's a fact worth celebrating?

That is precisely the point I am trying to make. I am not a reductionist.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I call this one 'Into the light' It symbolises my battle against dark things.

I don't expect everyone to 'get' it but the enlightened ones will.

It looks like a uterus that's had keyhole surgery performed on it in the dark. Obviously a metaphor for the artist's mother-hate (strokes beard).

 

[Blagsta]

Hence my use of the term "more mediated" with regard to painting.

How are you quantifying it?

 

[ska invita]

"Something" crept into the "art world" in the last century. The artist suddenly became more important than the work.
A culture of personality evolved and it seems that now it is all about the name...it's all about the "artist"

another lesser reason for this i think this is because conceptual art now requires the artist to provide some theory towards the meaning... a nice painting with some flowers stands alone for all time - a lightbulb going on and off requires a damn good explanation! the artists thoughts increasingly become part of the art beyond the object itself

 

[ViolentPanda]

I don't expect everyone to share the same artistic sensibilities. That would be dull. Differences are exciting. I was making a point about the use of the word 'pretentious'.

I know. I was trying to unpack that.

Yes but the fact that it has a name and is defined by a certain order of random noises, that it was created as part of a wider movement means it is more than the sum of its parts, more than just a collection of random noises, which it is. This can said for any human creation. It is always more than it is.

Well quite. I think that "Ballet Mecanique" is a great example of a new idea in "art" that illustrates perfectly how there's always a divide of opinion, and how that divide is always valid.
It started off as a collection of random noises, though. It was the artist's intent and training plus an audience's willingness to listen (or not!) that made it more than it originally was. The fact that some people didn't "get" it was just as important as some people getting it.

That is precisely the point I am trying to make. I am not a reductionist.

I know. I was attempting to illustrate that static views of what is or isn't art, are reductionist (contemplates switching off subtlety filter ).

 

[ViolentPanda]

How are you quantifying it?

Merely through my own eyes and opinions, for example that the media/tools for mediating photographic reproduction were, until recently, limited in scope, and often (especially in the darkroom) dependent on technical skill, whereas mediating painted reproductions, as we know from x-rays of many "great" artworks, was commonplace.

 

[Blagsta]

Merely through my own eyes and opinions, for example that the media/tools for mediating photographic reproduction were, until recently, limited in scope, and often (especially in the darkroom) dependent on technical skill, whereas mediating painted reproductions, as we know from x-rays of many "great" artworks, was commonplace.

I'd question if it was quantifiable. Differently mediated, yes. More or less? Hmmmm

 

[cesare]

Tied in with patronage - visible and ostentatious patronage.

Yes. I think it started earlier than the last century, which is what was being asserted.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yes. I think it started earlier than the last century, which is what was being asserted.

Yup, the Medicis with Leonardo, The Vatican with the other three Ninja Turtles.

 

[cesare]

Yup, the Medicis with Leonardo, The Vatican with the other three Ninja Turtles.

Leonardo was a ninja turtle ...

 

[Orang Utan]

Yes, again.
Insulting and belittling people who don't share your views and tastes.

Hardly. Your tardy post was a reaction to a fair comment and was also a fairly hypocritical one.

 

[ska invita]

ive got a few seconds for even the most knocked off conceptual art but i've got a zero tolerance policy on things written in neon lights. Whoever did it first, fair enough, but theres loads of this shit, lots of artists have had a go as if its a school of art.

quick google "20 Incredible Artists Using Neon" http://uk.complex.com/style/2013/07/neon-artists/" <so thats the best 20 - that means theres plenty more who didnt make the list

oh how clever

 

[ViolentPanda]

Hardly. Your tardy post was a reaction to a fair comment and was also a fairly hypocritical one.

Yes, it's utterly fair comment to answer a post where someone doesn't agree with you, with: "Such obtuseness on this thread. An ignorance parade", and obviously, doing so wasn't at all insulting or bellittling of people whose ideas about art and artists didn't coincide with yours.

 

[Orang Utan]

Yes, it's utterly fair comment to answer a post where someone doesn't agree with you, with: "Such obtuseness on this thread. An ignorance parade", and obviously, doing so wasn't at all insulting or bellittling of people whose ideas about art and artists didn't coincide with yours.

You've said much worse. My comments were fair. A couple of posters were revelling in their ignorance and I said so. What's the problem with that?
And read the fucking thread before canucking the fuck out of it, will you?