[Drunken Monkey]

Whats amaizing to me is that everyone who is making these passionate posts seems to forget many of those who they are responding to - posted nothing but their opinions, their angles on the subject.

Lets all remain in a perpetual ignorant blur of non-definition and abstract meaning. Then we wont discuss anything at all because nothing really is fixed and it is always a lot more than our narrow cognition allows us to see.
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"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity" - Sigmund Freud

[Mikko K]

I've created a monster and I want it dead.

Fred:

[Capt. Fred]

shoot me.
i was treating this all too formally.
i am a colossal ass and now feel lousy.

[dfacto]

*plants tongue firmly in cheek*
Don't deel bad Fred, being a collosal ass is what being human is all about.
I am very in touch with my humanity.
*extracts tongue from cheek*

There is art and then there is "art". Some modern "art" is shit that has no bearing on anything, and is simply promoted by critics for reasons I can't understand. (Andy Warhol anyone?) But for the most part, if there is actual subject matter in the artwork, and you can actually understand what it is* then it is art, no matter the style.

Artrenewal is right in a way that art education has fallen short recently. I was in Greece last year with my family and we met this young couple from Athens. They were both artists, and were studying at some exclusive art school there. I got kind of sad when I listened to them talk about their school, because they were paying for nothing. What the essentially said was that their teachers were not teaching them any art technique, that the school only accepted you if you were already a great artist with training, and that what they essentially did was whatever they wanted, and the teachers just sat with their thumbs up their ***es. I have never had a formal art education, as I wish to pursue another career path and do not have the time to take a proper course (maybe one day... *sigh*), but I hope that whatever I choose to study I will not be ripped off like they are.

YOU DON"T NEED TO PAY FOR A FANCY SCHOOL TO FIND A STYLE, it will come on its own.

*I saw a painting once in the San Francisco De Young museum, that was entitled something like "city on a busy night". It was nothing but paint splatters on a black canvas, and some stripes. I asked some of the people that I was with if they could see what the artist had intended, but everyone agreed that it was too vague to really peg down. It was more graphic design than straight art. (I divide art (aka painting) and graphic design, they are both art, but I think they are different and should be looked at seperately, but thats just me)

BTW: Artrenewal goes too far, their rhetoric needs to be toned down a bit (read: lot)
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It has been clinically proven that other people's pain IS funny.

[Mikko K]

[dfacto]

Well, actually Mikko K, the state of "sucking" is relative to the person doing the observing, so from my point of view, yes he does suck. From yours, he does too since you are not a fan. But I tend to paint in black and white, and only a few shades in between.
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It has been clinically proven that other people's pain IS funny.

[watmough]

you know...when it really comes down to it,art moves.

[Meaty Ogre]

Spooge, You probably wont reply to this, this threads a little stale. But, I wonder if you really believe your own opintion about subjectivity. It leaves one.. well, with nothing to talk about.

You often judge your own pictures when posting them. Are we not to consider the things you post here art? If the pictures are bad or good to you, why tell us? We'll have our own opinion.

Trying to think of art without good or bad is kind of depressing. Does it not have wonderful powers?

To you?

[spooge demon]

meaty,

Well, if that is true, then that means why we were talking is to bash one another over the head in order to convince the other that we have a license on Truth. That is more depressing to me.

I think the illusion that one is right in matters of preferences is one of the most powerful illusions that we are subject to. I feel I am right all the time, as does everyone else, but the chance that I am right and everyone else is wrong is pretty slim to none. A lot of people can�t deal with the probabilities of this.

Of course I have opinions, many of them, but I fight the temptation to mistake them as fact. Because my perception and information are limited, and in matters of preference, taste, ART, there is no way to define things. I had an aesthetic experience studying a bug smashed on my windshield; it was more beautiful in the abstract than any art I have seen.

I think one of the better habits of artists is to find the aesthetic where it was not before. Definitions really put a huge crimp on that.

For instance, I was shoveling several tons of chicken shit the other day and I was struck that it looked a lot like dirt. Then I thought about it, that shit is just partially decayed organic matter. It is stuff that used to be living and is now returning to the simpler components from which it was made. That is what dirt is (To be correct, dirt has mineral particulates in varying degrees and sizes that are inorganic). Dirt and shit are the same thing. Certain gases have dissipated from dirt so that it does not smell (it is just further along in the decomposition process), but they are the same thing. I looked out over the fields with brown beautiful earth poking out here and there, and realized that we live on a giant ball covered in a relatively thin layer of shit. Now you might think that is a depressing thought, and to some it might be. If you hold onto an �exalted, uplifting� vision of man as divinely inspired, it could be blasphemous. But to me, I take it as a given that life and existence are a good idea, so I have changed my opinion of shit. I will never say I don�t give a shit, because we all live by it, and yes, people buy it, like I bought my chicken shit.

[Mikko K]

Spooge, the book, now I'm more convinced than ever. Start writing!

Shit happens, but how come I never realised the truth! I have seen the light! We are all made of dirt (so says the Bible) so Slipknot's infamous people=shit statement was right after all!

[Wren]

For nearly a hundred years, we have been taught that art is about personal expression. But for thousands upon thousands of years before that, art was about something far less subjective.

Since the days of our primitive ancestors, art has been a vehicle for the communication of very specific information. The cave man did not throw his pigment haphazardly on the wall and say �Doesn�t it look pretty? It represents my emotions!� Instead he painstakingly tried to duplicate the objects and creatures that were a vital part of his existence. To pass down information that anyone could easily understand. And even now, thousands of years later, those early illustrations have given anthropologists an amazingly clear look at how our species once lived. That is what art was CREATED to do.

Art was not created as a form of personal expression. Art was created as the more permanent counterpart to our oral traditions. It was a means to record for posterity the important events and stories of the community or culture which the artist was a part of. And for centuries upon centuries, art continued to be created for this very objective purpose. As time passed, and our species evolved and improved, so did art evolve and improve to become more lifelike and complex. But always that sense of objective narrative was there. Anyone could look at it at any point in time after it�s creation and understand its purpose and intent.

And then suddenly all that changed. The �modern art� movement came into play and thousands of years worth of art as a respected skill by which people told stories and recorded history, was suddenly derided and sneered at. And now, we find ourselves wondering, �what is art?� Yet we need only look at why art was created in the first place to answer that question. Art was created to pass on specific information. If people want to express themselves by scribbling on a page or throwing paint around a room and let the world speculate about what the artist was thinking at the time, that is fine, but that doesn�t make it art in terms of what art was created to do. Any image that can�t be easily understood by the viewer and be interpreted the same way by every viewer, is really nothing more than an exercise in psychology.
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SASart Studios

[Meaty Ogre]

Spooge, thanks for writing. We (Sedone, Chris Anderson and I) aprieciate it. We talk about art a lot and we talk about your work alot and it's always great to here your thoughts. Even a paragrah about shit.

Of course I agree with you. It's a natural viewpoint. And when I said "isn't art wonderful?" I was including mounds of dirt.

The thing is I think it's hard to be an artist and feel that you are doing something constuctive for society, for culture without the concensus that the art people make is special. If dirt can be as good as rembrant then how can I justify spending all my life making mediocre fantasy art. We might better spend our time farming.

Because you used an example of nature to talk about esthetics I must ask you another question. How do you compare nature with the stuff people make? Is it different? Or is it again, all up to the viewer, and so they are the same?

[Les Watters]

Art is a responce to truth. If you do not believe in truth then art is an expression of self truth. Artists who believe in truth, see that truth in the created world around them and respond to it. Some believe that their art is a responce to GOD directly. Those that see no truth respond to only their emotional state of mind about things.

There is a pattern out there, what do you respond to?
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When in doubt, black it out.

Wally Wood

[Drew]

Usually I stay out of these discussions because art is personal and undefineable, and there therefore pointless to debate (in my opinion, of course), however, I disagree with Wren so strongly that I feel I must write. Wren, you write that "... for thousands upon thousands of years before that, art was about something far less subjective", however, since you are presumably talking about prehistoric art, what you write is purely a guess.

Though anyone can look at cave painting of various animals and humans hunting them and tell what is happening, we can only guess at what the artist was thinking. To me, it doesn't make sense that they would visually record the fact that animals existed, or that they hunted them. Such things would be obvious to anyone living at the time. I'd sooner believe that they thought making that art would help them with the hunt, or was an appeal to the gods of hunting. Of course, I'm guessing as well. Or, contrary to what you state, it could indeed be an emotional representation using objects in ways that we don't understand because they're not around to explain it to us, or because there's not enough work left to figure it out.

In addition, to claim that there is something wrong with modern art because art was not created to show such things originally is like saying that NASA doesn't use rockets because rockets were created by Nazis to attack Britain. Who cares what it was originally? Just as NASA scientists have built upon the technology of those before them, artist have always built upon the work of those that came before them.

To suggest that art is only for passing on the exact idea of the artist is quite narrow minded. Part of what I enjoy about art is that I can take the time to look into it and try to see what the artist intended. Even if I'm wrong, it's still fun to try. Who's to say that I can't create intentionally confusing art just to give the viewer's mind a workout? Who can say that's not art?

[Jason_Manley]

sorry to be off topic...but i thought the articles bashing hockney and his "masters cheat" book were interesting.

summed up many of my thoughts exactly.

arc is worthy not because of the baggege they bring but because of what they have done for the internet art community. I have seen dozens and dozens of bouguereaus I never knew existed...artists I never found in any other books...and a nice clean fromat to find them in.

i cant complain about the huge hi res downloads which they let us grab anytime we want.

good stuff...though I personally do not subscribe to the whole good art bad art argument...tis just ignorance....though I also understand their frusteration at losing so much art knowledge during the past hundred years in regards to traditional painting.


Spoogedemon...that was well said...very well said. on a side note... I may have some work for you...cool stuff...if you are interested and have time. i tried shooting you an email but i assume contact via that addy is a challenge. please send me an email at [email protected] if you find time.


cheers all...


j
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Jason Manley
www.conceptart.org

[amichaels]

From what I know of history, a lot of early art, like cave paintings and whatnot, weren't just recording what they saw and did. They were telling stories. My favorite pieces of art speak to the soul. They tell stories by visuals alone. When I see cave paintings, old tapestries etc, I see stories people committed to a medium to share with generations to come. Something to say "I was here!" not to shock or bring something "new" to the world of art.

[Akab]

I just have to say, Spooge's post just about made my day.

Thanks man! :] and cheers

[Wren]

[Frost]

[amichaels]

I can agree with that take on bad art.

[YVerloc]

"However, if i do a painting of a man standing in a battlefield full of destroyed tanks and heavy artillery and all around him lay the bodies of dead children, and call it "Outcome", what am i trying to say?"

Well, I think you would be saying that you've never met a cliche you didn't like. If you are really concerned about communicating clearly, then using cliches makes sense. They're effortless to digest. They teach nothing new, they show nothing new. They say nothing new.

So you're point about the 'outcome' illustration is well taken: If you say something trivial, and something that the other party already knows and understands, something that's already been said a thousand times before, then you've got a high likelyhood that your 'communication' will be clearly understood.

The problems with this are obvious.
YV

[Wren]

I guess it really depends on what audience the artist is trying to reach. If the artist is expressing themselves to...well...themselves, then anything goes and the sky is the limit for new ways of expression. If they want to express loneliness by painting yellow polka-dots, then that's cool. It's for themselves and since they know exactly what they are thinking and why yellow polka-dots mean loneliness, then they are the only ones who need to understand it. Of course, it seems rather silly to express yourself TO yourself but hey, whatever floats a persons boat.

But if an artist is trying to express himself to others, then he will be far more successful by doing it in a manner that everyone can relate to. If that means using some form of cliche, then so be it. At least the audience understands what it is the artist is trying to express.

The way i see it, if the message is worth telling anyone at all, then why waste time by being ambiguous about how it's presented and risk the chance that no one will comprehend? After all, if you wanted to speak to someone and tell them something specific, would you speak in gibberish or would you try to speak the language your intended recipient speaks?

I suppose what it boils down to is that, if what the artist is trying to express isn't terribly important or if he/she doesn't really care about whether people understand them or not, then sure, there is nothing wrong with presenting the idea in an obscure and original way. But no one should be surprised if people look at it and say "i don't get it". And they certainly can't blame the viewer for not being able to read the artists mind just because the artist failed to express themselves in a manner that can be interpreted without confusion.
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SASart Studios

[Mon]

Wren,

spooge had an aesthetic experience with a sqashed bug on a windshield, I had one just five minutes ago taking a piss. I'll spare you the details, but it caught my attention and imagination for a while. Nothing significant, probably won't influence me in my growth as an artist and human being, but it was something.

My point with this juvenile example is this: It's all about what you experience, and not so much about what the original message was. Once you've seen it, the artwork and the experience yours and yours alone. Screw the artist, he/she could have been wasted on drugs or the whole thing might be done by a chimpansee. If you get something out of it then that's all that matters.

Personally, with the attention-span of a 3yearold, I get bored with obvious and overstated art. If it doesn't involve me, my brain, hand, foot, leg, arm etc. I'm likely to wander off with my mind on other stuff. But that's a matter of taste and preference, not about absolutes.

Also, about being focused and clear about what you're trying to convey... I think that's something very central to everyone who is serious about art. I don't think it's that easy though, there is stuff that's tricky and fragile and won't be said with big, bold capital letters. The stuff between thoughts, the sound of silence, the feeling in your stomach on the first day of autumn...

yeah
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www.mattiassnygg.com
Blog!

[Meaty Ogre]

Well said Mon. And by the way I think your work lately looks real nice.

[Wren]

[Wayne Johnson]

As an artist you need to know what you are trying to say. You need to know from what foundation you will build upon. Once you decide on that foundation, Like the big modern BOMBSHELLS of Abstract Expressionism "We draw from the collective unconscious." then you can move forward with your art. No matter what your skill level is you have direction and purpose, even if your direction and purpose is chaos. DaDa for instance was concerned with chance and reflected a belief that the entire universe was created by Chance+time. They went so far as to randomly picking the name for their movement out of a French Dictionary, DaDa means toy rocking horse. It is the basic philosophical thought that drives an art movement. It is the idea of the "Noble Savage" or the Idea of an artist run society, like Van Gogh wanted, Random Chance like performing artist John Cage, or Collective Unconscious like Good old Pollack. If you move backward in time you see two different thoughts, one of Humanism from the Renaissance, and one of true Christian faith from the Reformation. The art movements had a meaning behind them that was driven by the philosophical thought of their time. Up until about 1890 most of the world still held on to reason, and absolutes, this thought changed and gave way to our modern art movements, that are created and then someone comes along and recreates with a new idea effectively erasing the old idea. So on and so forth. I believe TRUE ART can be defined. With out a definition then there is no art. Taste is another matter however. But you don't have to like it to be ART. Example, A Clockwork Orange, is a brilliant made film. I can't denie that it was expertly crafted, but the IDEA that the movie embraces is not an IDEA that I agree with or wish to support. Does it make it less than ART? No. It does however promote ideas that are not healthy. I want you all to understand that I do not wish to push my personnel definition of art on you. But I want you all to at least have some foundation to argue your point of if your painting is art or not. The most radical Nihilistic, atheistic thinkers of our time defined their art. So should we.
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Art is long and time is fleeting.

Andrew loomis