about art and its meaning and what constitutes art and who gets to judge that etc. I realized my opinion is a darned wishy washy position and I was curious about what my assembled think tank thinks.First, the questions: What is art? Who decides? What is *not* art? (sometimes it is easier to define the negative before the existent) That being said, can there be something which is art by definition, but is *bad* art? I'd really like to open a dialogue on this subject. I know in Hugh Curtler's Aesthetics class and others we spent a great deal of time on the subject, and in most philosophy/art classes this is also true. I don't want to reinvent the wheel but I am curious what my friends and loved ones think.
Now, for my opinion. Skip this part if you haven't already come to your own conclusions, I don't want to taint your response. Please if you do read it let me know where you think I commit a fallacy or in another way you disagree. Note that all below is my opinion, so I am leaving out the 'I think' statements as it is inferred to be inclusively such.
What is art? Art is something which a person, heretofore the artist, defines as art. This might be definitional through their act of creation such as in the cases of painting, sculpture or a ballet dancer, or it might be through the act of capturing something found or natural and manipulating it or leaving it as-is in the classic case of photography, found driftwood made into furniture, (direct from class, and that almost 10 years ago!) a crazy amazing sunrise that you alone see and declare to be a visual art, sea-glass on the beach that is sharp on one side and totally smooth on the other so reminiscent of the killer/gentle principles of the ocean itself, whatever. But the act of defining something as art makes it so, regardless of the qualitative nature of your opinion as a third-party looking at it. You might not find something compelling about it but that doesn't mean that you can disqualify their definition. The other definitive aspect would be that the artist has to be compelled by their art. They have to find something to communicate, to elaborate, to showcase, to convey, to 'compel' them to that definition. This might seem overly restrictive but if you think about it, it is necessary to pull in the parameters and also continue on the tack of artistic expression. It doesn't matter if the viewer understands the same thing the artist does, so long as the artist earnestly believes. This is what differentiates art from mere decorative objects or random acts.
With a definition that broad, can there be bad art? Like, totally. Sorry, the tenor was getting too serious and I needed to cut it a little to maintain my humor today. Anyway yes, you as the viewer can define something as bad for you. It does not speak to you, it is sloppily effected, it is generally of poor quality next to others of its type...whatever. Much of the abstract and modern art world is this way to me...much of it is not. Sometimes it's just that I don't understand, sometimes I understand and it just is poorly done, sometimes it just isn't an idea/concept/etc. that I find compelling in their communicative fashion. Whatever the reason, yes, for you there can be bad art. There can even be art that 99% of people say is bad, and it can still be art.
Enough is enough, Rhiannon! Why does this matter to me?
For one, in this global world of ours more and more we are exposed to things which are beyond our knowledge and experience. It pays in spades to be able to look at these and analyze them without having to always feel like you understand them. Heh, maybe that's part of what makes me so flexible: I accept I don't understand most of the world around me and don't let it hang me up too much. Now people, that's another story...
When I thought about this question a few years ago, here's what I came up with: "Art is about creating that connection between the artist and the audience via the piece of art."
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I would call something art if it's not meant to connect with others. Meditation or craft, perhaps, but not art. The "others" may be as small as an audience of one, or it may be the audience of "history" (as is the case with artists discovered posthumously), but art, to me, is about having something to say and using a medium to say it. As you say, artists "have to find something to communicate".
As an aside, this is why a lot of modern art is inaccessible to me - its audience is the other artists steeped in the postmodern critical cultural milieu debating theoretical points, and I just don't have the background to understand the context. A good exhibit at a modern art museum provides the historical predecessors of the artist, which makes it much clearer what they were reacting to, and places their art in that context.
Anyway. Just a couple thoughts.