What is art?

[Chesto]

Oh yes. It would allowed in the UK. Probably have tone down the pink though. We can't handle much out side the blue/green/grey spectrum.

 

I'm guessing the giant V. was more in the nature of a feminist political statement, rather than a purely artistic one. It looked more 'craft' than 'art'.

 

DuChamps' 'Urinal'; Picasso's handlebar goat: surely these fall within using real objects as art. Or maybe I'm not understanding your point.

[Duskrider]

Asking for a black and white definition of art is kind of impossible. There just really isn't a nice neat line where everything on one side is clearly art, and everything on the other side is clearly not. Instead, you should consider it a spectrum ranging from "clearly not art" to "clearly art". Ask yourself a few questions:

 

1) Does the work have inherent aesthetic value, or is its only value in the statement it makes? Consider concepts like color, proportion, etc.

 

2) Is it actually the result of careful creative effort, or is it like your MS Paint squares, just a random image?

 

3) If it has a message, how much of an attempt is made to present the message in a creative way? A 10' high "BUSH SUCKS" sign is not art.

 

4) If there were no art critics to label it as "good art", and the artist was not famous, would you still appreciate the work?

 

Etc.

 

 

A lot of modern "art" just fails all of these points. Consider the infamous trash bag "art" (the "artist" dropped his random trash bag on the museum floor and called it art... the janitor threw it out without realizing it was an expensive work of art). It has no aesthetic value outside of the statement it is making about the art world. Nobody would call my trash bags art, even though they look exactly the same. The only reason anyone called it "art" was because the self-appointed art critics declared it to be art, and stupid rich people feel a need to demonstrate their good taste to everyone else. If it had just been some random guy who did it, nobody would've given it a second look... but because it was one of the "artists you need to care about", it got tons of attention and a huge price tag.

 

So this pretty clearly says the trash bag had no inherent value as art, its sole "value" came from the circular logic of "this is art because I say it is art".

[DecalMirror]

2) Is it actually the result of careful creative effort, or is it like your MS Paint squares, just a random image?

 

I just can't understand how the methods the work is made has anything to do with the "fact" is it art ir not. From some pictures you can't tell is it made in five minutes of five days. The only thing that matters is the completed work, not how your going to complete it.

 

3) If it has a message, how much of an attempt is made to present the message in a creative way? A 10' high "BUSH SUCKS" sign is not art.

 

Tell me why "BUSH SUCKS" is not art. I can express my political opinions in many ways even in art form. That sing is just one of them.

 

On the other hand, IF we pretend that the exact expression is not art, there can still be many things that could make it art. Or what do you think if I make very beautiful oil painting using half of my lifetime(pointing to your question 2.) to it and there's written crearly "Bush sucks"?

 

4) If there were no art critics to label it as "good art", and the artist was not famous, would you still appreciate the work?

 

Would YOU? Is your point there that you can't think the work art then? I think that any critics or how famous the artist is can't affect whether the work is art.

 

If you see some painting fist time not knowing the artist, could you think it as art? If we pretend you don't think so, would your opinion change if you hear some good critics from it and that Da Vinci painted it?

 

So this pretty clearly says the trash bag had no inherent value as art, its sole "value" came from the circular logic of "this is art because I say it is art".

 

Like I said before, I think that today's trend has been that artistic value is directly linked to the artist's famousness. Most people(too many anyway) are too dumb or lazy to think anything with their own brains so they just believe what they are told. If that artist is famous, his statements has more value than unknown artists'.

[DecalMirror]

Or maybe I'm not understanding your point.

 

Um, maybe I couldn't say it clearly enough.. My point was that "extremes" like that always stir up heated conversation about what is art and does it deserve the merits it's gotten. And yeah, its actual purpose was to bring up the issue of sexual equality.

 

Still, I think that if it was a man who made such a big *censored*, he would have been characterized as some perverted freak, not a creative artist.

[Chesto]

So... I suppose the Dada-ists were right. Art IS dead. And all we're left with is 'presentation'. And decal- plenty of famous creative artists WERE and ARE perverted freaks.

 

[Edit to the Edit above this] If you didn't like it, xen, then they are loving you from the grave. 'Like' an anarchist and you destroy his/her whole raison d'etre. And I think one thing we've pretty well all agreed on is that there is no 'right' in art.

[DecalMirror]

And decal- plenty of famous creative artists WERE and ARE perverted freaks.

I realize that well, but look out of your window and these people there. Do you think they realize? I think in their point of view artists are not perverted freaks and other way around. Compare high-elves to orges in use of magic. :P

[Chesto]

And decal- plenty of famous creative artists WERE and ARE perverted freaks.

I realize that well, but look out of your window and these people there. Do you think they realize? I think in their point of view artists are not perverted freaks and other way around.

 

Compare high-elves to orges in use of magic. :P

 

Can you see them too!? Thank...! And... I hope they don't realize. I've got to live here. They're already cross because I don't have a car tax disk. And they WILL NOT accept that it's a public art installation and not just a dumped old banger. What we artists suffer for our art!

 

Afraid, dec, you've lost me on this one: the high elf ref.

[WITHTEETH]

A persons past experiences and knowledge will determine what one sees in a picture. Not one meaning will be exactly the same given if 100 people look at 1 picture. So art is in the eye of the beholder, thus art is subjective.

[ResidentWeevil2077]

A persons past experiences and knowledge will determine what one sees in a picture. Not one meaning will be exactly the same given if 100 people look at 1 picture. So art is in the eye of the beholder, thus art is subjective.

I agree, Teeth - art is what one makes of it. One may look at an abstract painting and say "What the hell is that supposed to be?", while another person may look at it and say "It signifies a point in the artist's life." (or some other philosophical thing like that :P )

[DecalMirror]

Afraid, dec, you've lost me on this one: the high elf ref.

..my bad. I meant that in tes lore orcs just can't cast any spell except these pooty fireball starting spell and can't be mages(or smthng like that, you get the point). Most people thinks that perverted freaks and their "art works" just can't be art but some weird materialized sexual fetishes for example.

 

 

One may look at an abstract painting and say "What the hell is that supposed to be?", while another person may look at it and say "It signifies a point in the artist's life." (or some other philosophical thing like that :P )

Do you(and teeth) mean that the means and messages the artist is trying to tell with his art work has no any effect to one's opinion? Only his background and such things? I think that the work itself has very minimal effect for most peoples' opinion but the artists own status has the greatest influence.

 

While I wrote this I thought that.. How do you think that whether one thinks the picture is abstract or non-abstract(don't know the word) has anything to do with that does he think it as art or no?