BS: Modern art?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 05:51 PM

Thanks Vannesa, your post was very interesting, it made me think.john

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 09:01 PM

Modern Art only compares well to previous centuries if Fabrege' made gem encrusted turds instead of eggs, or if Titian only painted autopsied cadavers. Here is my contribution to modern art that I just made today form my own photos. don't worry the kids will love it too

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 11:28 PM

Leonardo Da Vinci was the one who did drawings and paintings of cadavers, and, as it so happens, autopsied them himself. Thomas Eakins, who classifies as a a painter from another century, worked a lot with cadavers, and got into a lot of trouble because he made his students work with them, as well--

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 02:28 AM

Unlike music, the visual arts, well painting in particular have had most of their purpose and value taken away by new technology such as photography, film and video.

Visual artists have struggled with this to find a role.

The role of music is exactly the same even if the technology changes?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 02:30 AM

Wow, this has taken a loverly turn!

There are all kinds of grades of communication, and they involve both the recipient and the creator of the communication.

Even in ordinary oral discussion it is not unusual to find a listener cannot begin to imagine what you are on about, because h/she is missing terms, has no common experience, or has a much different set oif emotional values, or is just plain dull and literal, for example, when you are trying to be funny or poetic.

The layers of human communication are much more complex and far far more subtle than trying to get a codec to handshake with a UART and then get the bits shifted out through a TCP I/P protocol. (OK, I did that on purpose, sorry.)

Some of the things artists try to wrestle with are ordinary, aned some are not. There is an entire spectrum, for example, of emotional contact which artists try to master. Some can do no better than the kind of cheap Zapp provided by a dime novel. Others find more subtle or more gentle or more spiritual ways to move, touch, scintillate or shiver the viewer.

There is another whole spectrum involving the intellectual framing and cross linking we humans are so fond of, and here again you can find the really shoddy at one end of the scale -- concepts opresented to impose knee-jerk reactions like a fascist peptalk -- up to the amazing but somewhat overbuilt intellectual harmonics laced through a chapter of Ulysses and the remarkable experiences that can be caused intellectually by confront unexpected silences. In many ways, an artist's effort can go further -- into intentionally trying to break the viewer clear OUT of his intellectual processes and into an experience for wqhich he HAS no pre-built associations?

Why would that be valuable? Doesn't it break the fundamentals of communication? No, it does not. It breaks the rules of conventions and leaves the viewer on his own naked mettle as a Knower. As such it is perfectly possible, and perhaps highly desireable, to break the pattern of expected symbols as a communication that occurs in spite of symbol and signal violations. What sort of communication would that be? Hard to imagine....except when it happens, and the craft of the artist pays off with the sudden loss of breath or the unexpected tear, or the filling of a busy mind with some understanding never before seen by it....

Because that is the Higher Power of communication, which transcends all codes, out-reaches all agreements of vocabulary, and aspires to the unthinkable direct channel from one soul to another. Now THAT is Communication. And that is what the best of Art can be about.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Ringer
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 04:49 AM

I suspect, Amos, that a communication that occurs in spite of symbol and signal violations is probably no communication, and we're back to "Art" being what the viewer wants it to be. But, as I've said above, I'm artistically illiterate. Seriously, though, your post above is evidently thoughtful, and I'm grateful; I shall re-read it and attempt to digest it. I may be back...

Vanessa: welcome and thanks for your insights. Re my kid: he's finished this 1-year foundation course, and the course he's chosen (but deferred) is a combination of least corrupted by "modernism" and most amenable to combining visual with audio that he could find.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: English Jon
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 05:29 AM

Out of interest, what do you think "Modern Art" should be saying? I think a lot of the best work shows us what we already know, but never really notice.

EJ

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 08:53 AM

You can keep/shove your excuses for ugly shock art. Compelling beauty is finer than shock jock art in any age.

Although simple, these took D.Hakman 4 years to do , modifying the violins and cellos and then bending perspectives.Adults under the mental age of 13 do not click here

PICTURED ARE : Bombs and mushroom cloud, Leonardo D'Vinci's self portrait rendered to show more him smirking, disembodied genitals, the modern paradigm for an alien, endangered tiger at various stages in his life span, growing organic fractal images expanding and withdrawing in its travels down the helix of time. - ALL COMPOSED OF VIOLIN WOOD - with no overlay to the final image . Only a bending and blending of perspective is employed. What you see is what there is but there is something more for the inquisitive. Then one can always play these instruments which is an unseen dimension compared to their image.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 09:40 AM

/shove your excuses for ugly shock art -- Sonuel

I wasn't making excuses, if it was I to whom you were speaking.

I concur that compelling beauty is far more powerful than shocking ugliness. But that doesn't mean that ugliness doesn't communicate.

Bald Eagle, breaking up the expected patterns of symbols does not lead to a "no-communication". Ordinary puns do it to some degree and when they sink in they produce a belly laugh because they have communicated on multiple layers by breaking an expected symbol correlation. The net effect is not the same communication as in the literary translation of the symbols.

Piccasso's works often got rejected and abused because they were bizarre and distorted; yet when sit and look at them, allowing them to show themselves without reacting, you get an inkling of a wholely different perspective on the subject. Thus, communication.

Those triangle-faced women aren't compellingly beautiful;, either!:>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 10:09 AM

Amos,

I had wanted to bring up Wittgenstein and the inherent meaninglessness of language in our thread on Atheism, but you are there--I must say I enjoy your comments immensely--

Donuel,

Talk about shock art! I'll bet this stuff is not well received by a lot of the more conventional minds in the violin making or violin playing segments of society--

Shambles,

I think that music has been marginalized by technology--In the 1890's, when phonographs and movies were novelties, there were literally thousands of theaters where singers, musicians, and entertainers of every kind performed, nearly every public place, from hotels to restaurants, to barrooms, employed musicians to provide ambience, background music, and music for dancing--A little bit at a time, this stuff has been replaced with recorded music--even in the fifties and sixties, there was a lot of paying work for small bands and even folk groups--

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 11:26 AM

The ability to record or broadcast music has not changed its essential role or that of the musician.

Painters have not been needed for some time just to record what people looked like and have had to find a new role.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 12:08 PM

Musicians haven't been needed to provide music, either. And believe me, the ability to record, and especially the addition of sequencing, sythesizers, and sampling have totally changed the roll of the musician--The first time I went into the studio, more than twenty five years ago, if you wanted to make a recording of a band, you needed warm bodies. Several yearss ago, a band I was got a contract to record an album of material for release in a former Communist block nation--All the instrumentals and vocals ended up being done by one guy(not me) and and a producer/engineer--the rest of us weren't very happy, but that is another story--

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 12:32 PM

True enough about the effect of puns and symbols but whether it is a jar of urine in the museum or kids or kids defacing tombstones , they both communicate.

Picasso's work is probably best represented in his erotic drawings and etchings. Since he grew up in a brothel his insight into somatic eros is profound. His "breakthrough" work was in fact erotic. Although I have a rare reprint of his erotic genre there has yet to be an exhibit of these works. Perhaps soon this will change.

As for my work upsetting classical makers , they were most upset when I had the temerity to impune that their $14,000-$200,000 prices are a practice of an "Emporer with no Clothes".

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST,Vanessa
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 07:27 PM

There are so many interesting conversations here I decided to bite the bullet and join up. It's hard to find adult-level conversation on the Internet that isn't about computer technology -- so thank you everyone!

Donuel, somehow I sense that you don't assign a high artistic level to the "jar of urine in the museum," which is understandable if that single line of information is all you know about that work.

Here's a photograph of "Piss Christ" by Serrano, to which I assume you're referring:

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/finearts/karmel/modern/m_67.html

(This is one of many pictures in a fine, fine list, which you can see all of at this URL (mind the space, it's all one line). Take a look and see some more modern art: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/finearts/karmel/modern/add.html#40 )

First, I think that this photo is beautiful. Second, the photo makes the context of the piece clearer. Several years ago I saw an exhibit of Serrano's work, part of a larger show about art and science, as I recall. While the exhibit didn't include "Piss Christ," it did include several 3ft x 4 ft extreme closeup photographs of body fluids: urine, blood, and semen. These photos were ...they were beautiful. Gracefully back-lit swirls, bubbles, and flowing broad bands of color. To my mind, the artist obviously wanted us to look at the beauty of these body fluids that we're accustomed to ignoring (even more so in the age of AIDS).

Now, with that in mind, take another look at "Piss Christ." I'm willing to bet that one of Serrano's major intents for this piece was to say, "This, too, is my body." That is, he's saying every part of our bodies is worthy of reverence.

Far as I'm concerned that artistic statement merits a place in any museum.

Now that I've signed up (I hope), a bit more background. I was raised with all kinds of music, but particularly folk music. My mother used to have a folk music radio show on KPFK many years ago. I still listen to blues & folk, and in fact I'm headed off to a folk music and dance camp next week. Just so you know I'm not an interloper or nuthin.

Vanessa

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 09:45 PM

Hell, Vanessa, even iffn you wuz an interloper, we wouldn't mind -- we got all kinds here, even some deevorcees, and some who never got hitched at all, an a couple who wuz married by Cletus while he wuz in command of a rowboat on Shandy Creek. We promise not tuh tell yore folks where you are, if you'd druther, on account of there bein' mad at ya fer interlopin. An' whoever it was with, he shore got himself a keeper, too.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Vanessa
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 02:08 AM

Dang, Amos! You shore do know how to make a body feel welcome. Thank yew kindly!

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 02:27 AM

Welcome to Mudcat Vanessa

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 05:40 PM

I saw a 100 tonne piece of Portland Stone going past my door this week. It was the largest single piece of stone ever to leave the island.

It was to be an 'installation' and headed for an arts festival at Compton Verney Warwickshire. It was described as "one of the big art events of the year in terms of logistics".

The festival paid £10.000 to tranport it but was donated FOC to the artist, John Frankland who said.

"It all sounds like boys and their toys but it is a bit deeper than that". "It's like trying to visualise a peice of earth being moved from one place to the other". "The stone itself is not a piece of art but the journey and the change of context is almost making it a piece of art".

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 05:42 PM

It is so much like visualizing a piece of the earth being moved frm one place to another that I can't notice any difference!!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 05:56 PM

We are left with the big hole.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 06:07 PM

LOL!! Well, that's not _quite_ what I meant, Sham, but that sure is a difference!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 04:40 AM

'Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall'.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Angie
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 09:29 AM

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As is art. Music must be in the ear of the beholder.

I lump all these things into one bucket. Love, beauty, music, art, peace, contentment, poetry, I just don't know what to name this bouquet of loveliness. A collective noun for the nicer things in life. Any suggestions?

Vanessa, absolutely! Totally agree with your capital 'A' comments too. Good to have you onboard, shipmate!

Mal

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Ringer
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 04:52 AM

Well, I visited Tate Modern at the weekend (let no-one say I don't take this seriously). I got progressively crosser and crosser as I saw more and more meritless daubings and piles of junk. I am convinced it's all bollocks (and pretentious bollocks at that), and the answer to the question, "Are they taking the piss?", posed by JinH in the first posting above, must be "Yes".

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 12:07 PM

If you are near Hull go to the Ferens, its nice, there is lots of proper art there.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Jim Cheydi
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 12:20 PM

I don't know what I like, but I know about art.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 12:47 PM

I started reading this thread, then decided to just imagine what the rest of it might contain. By that strategem I have no doubt saved some time and aggravation.

By imagining this post, instead of typing it I might have saved a little more...

But for what? What will I do with all the "saved time"?

Hmmmmm....

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 02:07 PM

You say that you saw "meritless daubings" and "piles of junk"--But you have said that you don't know much about art, so it seems a bit presumptous for you make such pronouncements--

Maybe you didn't like or understand what you saw, but a lot of the other people who were in the galleries did get something out of it. When you make those kinds of judgements, you discount everyone else's experience but your own--maybe you were missing something--That's OK, you don't have to always get it or like it, but that doesn't mean that people who find meaning in it is wrong--

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Bert
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 03:18 PM

If you have to ask "Is it art" it probably isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 03:41 PM

Is what art?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 07:35 PM

For what its worth, good art invites people to think and connect. Seems like this exhibition has done just that. Bet for most people on this thread, this is the most they have thought about visual art in a long time.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 10:39 PM

I still reckon they are taking the piss! I have just heard about the Turner Prize nominations, apparently one of them is an empty room with somebody swithcing an electric light on and off, this piece of "art" could win 20,000 pounds! It takes me a year to earn that much, I think I chose the wrong job, I should have been an artist.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 06:54 AM

Now I know they are taking the piss! An "artist" has just won 20,000 pounds for an empty room with the light been switched on and off, his other works of art include a piece of blu tack on a wall and a crumpled up piece of paper.He says he is a minimalist, I say he is a pillock.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Ringer
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 07:24 AM

But would a pillock be able to get £20000 in exchange for an electric timer?

"Look: the Emperor's got no clothes on!"

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST,Skipjack
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 09:31 AM

And the winner is ..................... The electric company, profiting from art. I would have entered a fridge, as mine does the same thing, but automatically. Ah, you say, but does the fridge know what it's doing? Hmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 10:00 AM

Well, you can argue that anyone could make a switch go on and off, but tjat is really not the point.

The point is more on the line of what occurs to a visitor -- what sort of communication or experience -- when he approaches this exhibit and has to stand observing someone dicking with the lights in an empty room. It raises some intersting questions about perception and expectation, actually, just imagining it.

If you take an experiment in this kind of transcendental communication (meaning that it jumps beyond the normal set of forms and meanings) and try to force it in to a normal context (such as "why are they wasting electricity?") then you might as well curl up with a more normal kind of communication such as a good book. It doesn't quite work that way. They guy who rigged it up IS trying to make apoint, but he is is trying to make it outside the normal rule set and some people find this offensive or irritating.

But it does communicate. This is not a no-clothes Emperor. It's an Emperor who dresses funny.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:32 PM

(*heavy sarcasm alert*)

To me it's really all about navel lint. Some people find it more compelling than others. And for some it can be a very expansive experience. But it's still navel lint.

(I wonder if I can get some grant money for coming up with such a profound idea... )

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:45 PM

I suppose a conman is a kind of artist.

Some suggestions for future Turner Prize awards -

a queue with a pickpocket;

a toilet that plays God Save the Queen when you try to sit down on it. It'd work better when it gets to Ne York, and it's adjusted to play God Bless America;

karaoke for a conductor;

a dead rat on a plate for as long as it takes for it to turn into a swarm of flies and a skeleton.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: gnomad
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:50 PM

No John, the artist is not the real pillock here, that would be the person allowing the entry into the contest.

Reading back up the thread I don't see the suggestion for Damien that his next work (after the animal in formaldehyde) could be a self portrait, wish I had come up with that one, I might even pay to see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 05:07 PM

Here's a younger thread about this It might be better to move over there if people want to continue the discussion, since this is getting a bit long in the tooth.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST,Wyrdsister
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 05:19 PM

Well, this is something I've always wondered about myself...I remember hearing Yoko Ono talk about the first time she met John Lennon; he'd attended one of her "exhibits" at the the-groovy Indica gallery in Soho. There was an apple on a pedestal, and he took a bite of it. Yoko was outraged and said something like "How dare you touch my piece?" She immediately put him down as a philistine, but apparently changed her opinion later. Of course, their short (!) film on the process of tumescence is another instance of art possibly taking the piss......