(no subject)

[lwoodbloo]

sisterred, especially, not because of our relationship, but as an artist, I want to hear what you think of THIS.

http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2002/Derbyshire/nincompoop1.asp

Comments

[sisterred.livejournal.com]

Well, I think that art is a completely subjective form of expression. Where one person sees something great in a "scrunched-up sheet of plain typing paper", I see trash. Having said that, I really do want to know what criteria this award is based on. I hold to the 'art' is just an old word for 'skill,' and that nothing worthy of being called art is created without skill, studied, sweated, endlessly practiced skill. How much practice goes in to crumpling a piece of paper, or sticking a piece of plasticine into a wall? I can't answer that. I know that that form of "art" really doesn't make me think. It doesn't make me question how it was done or why it was done. It makes me feel that I've been slaving away too hard on my pen and inks and maybe I should emulate these artists. Maybe then, I will win a Turner award for linking a chain of paperclips together or making a sculpture out of used Juicy Fruit.

It's amazing that if 100 people were to look at a blank white wall, framed in gilt, there would be 100 different opinions on what it meant and what the person who framed the wall was trying to say. Just as everything else in this world, we all have our own opinions. So this is neither right nor wrong to me, it's just odd.

[lwoodbloo.livejournal.com]

Subjective, yes. But is there a point where you can just say "My god, that SUCKS"?

Art or Soup?

[mistressjennie.livejournal.com]

I have to say I loved the article. Whatever my opinions on art, it was brilliantly written. That being said, I have to agree with him a good deal on the idea of skill. Some modern and post modern art affects me. But not all that much. Color, line, mood, tone, yes they're all interesting, but I don't pour over those pieces like I do over say, Brunelleschi. The same with "sculpture", aka a pile of planks or srunched up paper. I can see planks in my basement, I can see David in the Louvre.
Being on "the edge" of the art world. Crap. Utter crap. I'm an intelligent, well read, creative, and open minded girl, who works in the visual arts, but I still think most of it's crap. Much like my distain for performance art, I just don't care. And if I don't care, I don't respond. And what is art, if it doesn't ellicit a response. One of my teachers at Plymouth, an amazing actress, who got her degree in Philosophy and is currently finishing her doctorate in the same, once called it "public ego masterbation" and I really can't think of a better way to describe it, whether it be physical or performance art. It's just stroking yourself to seem cool and interesting to other people who are waiting to be told what to think, while people with talent and drive spend their lives perfecting skills that are lacking in "award winners".
I leave you with a true story. My private art teacher when I was in high school got so angry at all this "crap masquerading as art", that one summer while with her, as she was finishing up a degree from her hated Harvard, she decided to sheer her 4 pet sheep. She took a ball of uncarded, uncleaned wool from the oldest male sheep, Hermes, and placed it on a pedestal with the little notecard bearing the title of the piece. "Hermes" Dorothy Abrams Mixed Media. She wanted to see what artsy people would say about it. Now, Dorothy is from Greece, and all of her pets are named after figures of Greek myth, so she simply named the ball of wool for its owner, a sheep. There were many conclusions drawn as to the meaning and statement being made. Why Hermes, the Messenger God? What does this tell us about what the artist thinks about the Earth? Farms? Man's quest for spiritual guidance?
Dorothy just laughed. "It's a piece of filthy wool. It's not art."

Re: Art or Soup?

[lwoodbloo.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I know from whence you come, Jennie.

Re: Art or Soup?

[mistressjennie.livejournal.com]

If you ever get the chance, see the play The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. If you can't see it somewhere, read the script. You'll especially like the discussion on the difference between Art and Soup. It took the space chums a while, so don't be frustrated if it takes you time... and space. Hehe...