What is art? A discussion

[Entropy]

Did I read that correctly? Is the Captain at a loss for words?!?

 

[amarcord]

talk talk art will fade, real art is timeless, not?

 

[galactiboy]

I have to go with EvilFace's earlier post... sums it up nicely, but seems to also allow for all of the variety.

To me art has a lot to do with purpose; a dog turd, is just a dog turd... but if someone picks it up, lays it on a picture of George W. Bush and sticks it in a show I'd consider it art.

 

[Mr Pixies]

I think art is anything that you direct specific attention to, to be seen in the context of art, which is to experience/sense/understand what the piece is expressing. If your friend took hiss balled up napkin, took it to a museum and had them exhibit it, people would look at the napkin ball and contemplate what they are seeing, everyone will take it in a different way. Maybe he could then have a video playing of his conversation/argument and it'll show him balling up the napkin. That would sorta undo what you'd thought the napkin ball expressed, that it was made to be about what art is, instead of what? How can anything considered art, not be anything but something that determines the existence of art?

 

[barryo]

a billion definitions of art..........but for my personal definition it would be something an individual or group of people create (and the medium can run from a to z) that stirs your emotions when you see it. a smile, a frown, indifference, or a feeling of..... to each his own about what constitutes good, bad or even mediocre art. you basically as an individual have to decide what you like, ex: the mona lisa or dogs playing poker?

 

[Darth Madden]

My definition of art.... "If its something I can do... its NOT art."

 

[creecher]

Though punching someone in the face to express your feelings shouldn't be considered art.

Maybe not the act itself, but the way in which it was delivered could be, as in martial art.

Practically anything can be considered art, if the artist himself puts thought and effort into it, he may say it is. You yourself may not consider it art but someone else may see something in it, that conveys meaning to them, and might also say it is art. Art, I think, has some aspect of control involved.

Art also involves controversy, so I'll post this email I received a few weeks ago.

"THIS WILL TAKE A MINUTE OF YOUR TIME AND WILL SAVE A CREATURE – AND HOPEFULLY REMOVE THIS SO-CALLED 'ARTIST'!!!

Hi all, this is a very serious matter...

In the 2007, the 'artist' Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, took a dog from the street, he tied him to a rope in an art gallery, starving him to death.

For several days, the 'artist' and the visitors of the exhibition have watched emotionless the shameful 'masterpiece' based on the dog's agony, until eventually he died.

Does it look like art to you?

But this is not all ... the prestigious Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American decided that the 'installation' was actually art, so that Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to repeat his cruel action for the biennial of 2008.

Let's STOP HIM

Click on the following link :

https://www.petitiononline.com/ea6gk/petition-sign.html

or

https://www.petitiononline.com/13031953/petition.html or just copy it in your browser to sign a petition to stop him to do it again, then digit the name Guillermo Vargas Habacuc to find the petition to sign.

Please do it.

It's free of charge and it will only take 1 minute to save the life of an innocent creature.

Please also send this e-mail to as many contact as you can... Let's stop him!!!

If you want to double check all the above informations you can google the name of the 'artist' to see all I have just said corresponds to truth.

Thank you
Gordon Fütter."

 

[TOE]

Did I read that correctly? Is the Captain at a loss for words?!?

he used it all up in the Frodo thread

 

[amarcord]

Creecher, just read your post and signed the petition and hope that monster will be stopped.
Incroyable that none of those visitors on the photos liberated the dog.
I wish also all the worst to that wannabe rotten "artist" who will probably claim all our upset emotions as his masterpiece/intention - how low and how cheap a human being can be.
My day is ruined.

 

[Darth Madden]

Creecher, just read your post and signed the petition and hope that monster will be stopped.
Incroyable that none of those visitors on the photos liberated the dog.
I wish also all the worst to that wannabe rotten "artist" who will probably claim all our upset emotions as his masterpiece/intention - how low and how cheap a human being can be.
My day is ruined.

You can check snoops... there is a lot of debat weather that was real or not. Even if it wasn't real the idea still makes it suck.

 

[pjam]

Oh no. This is what my entire life has been devoted to, defining art. But for once I'm not gonna post my immediate impressions. I'll give my thoughts in a bit, but suffice it to say that no, not everything is art. There are those, especially in modern art, who think you can throw yellow paint on an old ironing board and call it art. That's just not true. However, since I've just written a million pages on the Hobbits, I'm gonna wait till tomorrow before I take the time to articulate it.

Merciful Willikers!



Art is in the eye of the beholder. It can be just about anything. God is the ultimate Artist. For the record, I'm an Artist too and I'm not touching this subject again.

Enjoy Kids, And Cap, PLEASE... don't hold back Bro!

 

[King Darkness]

Done Kreech! Thats ^^^^ed up, they should starve that ^^^^ face and see how he likes it.

 

[galactiboy]

I wondered if the dog story would be on snopes or not... it really has that "too f'd up" to be true feel. Hopefully that, like the bonsai kitty, is just someones idea of a bad joke.

 

[creecher]

My day is ruined.

Sorry, didn't mean to ruin anyone's day. I wouldn't have posted this sort of thing here normally, but as the subject had been raised, I thought I may as well.

Over here we've just had some controversy over a 'big name' (never heard of him before) photographic artist that opened an exhibition, which amongst other things, had several photo's of a young girl in the nude. Needless to say, the police shut it down and are charging him. Cate Blanchett voiced her support for the artist in question, and the integrity of the photo's. Then this week, there's photo's of a young boy in the nude.

Our government hands out grants to artists, then there are those who abuse the privilege. Calling vomit on a canvas, art. That's okay but not on taxpayers funds it's not. Purposefully causing controversy, rather than pay for publicity. You have to wonder about those types. Artistic freedom doesn't mean you're allowed to throw ethics out the window. Okay, I'm done. I'm going on about artists instead of art.

Although I do finally get to use this icon, at long last. :mona

 

[Darklord Dave]

I did google the artist and found his statement that he did it to cause controversy because 100 of dogs starve to death in the streets of his city every day and it shows the hypocrisy of the public to be outraged at just another starving stray. If art is making people think about a situation then he succeeded.

On a related note - my signature image is taken from an installation I saw in a Hollywood hotel lobby of a bunch of lenticular displays. I thought the sentiment was so cleverly expressed, and such a great use of the technology that I attempted to recreate it for my sig. This is just text, certainly not "beautiful," but I'd consider that art.

 

[Eli26]

I actually proposed that idea to my friend, that art is being able to create beautiful things (or something similar to that).

He told me that his crumpled napkin could be beautiful and to him it was, even if nobody else thinks so.

I disagreed, of course.

He was being an ass. He clearly doesn't think that, or if he did. He's crazah!!!! CRAZAH IN THE HEAD!!!

Art as a whole is very subjective. What one thinks is crap, another perceives as art. I think one needs talent and creativity to produce art. However, some paintings go for thousands, and sometimes even in the millions. Yet it looks like some 2-year-old scribbled it. While somebody else can paint a portrait of a real person, and make it look so accurate and life like, yet it goes for nothing.

Seems to me, not always, if there is an interesting story behind the piece, and people can make a connection of that story to the piece, it really sells. That or some wackjob cuts off his ear, and instead of calling him a wackjob, we call him an artistic genius.

 

[devilof76]

So if I have a 'feeling' in my lower abdomen, and I fart, I'm an artist? Because my feeling has been expressed.

What if I did it to make you think? Now I'm even more of an artist.

This is the best definition of art I've found: art is a recreation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgements.

'Metaphysical value judgments' just means those convictions which a person holds that determine what aspects of reality they consider to be most important. Usually, those convictions are sub-conscious, and an artist is not aware that that is what is guiding their creative process. When reality is recreated according to these judgements, it means that the non-essential elements of the subject are omitted so as to empasize the elements the artist wants the observer to pay attention to.

So selectivity is key, and representation of somethinig real is key. Blotches of paint on a canvas is not art. It's just blotches of paint on a canvas. That's as much art as "hufdaguivbdi wrhiof8a[9 r8yr[08g" is writing. Lots of things are expressions of emotion, and lots of things cause emotional reactions, but not all of those things are art.

 

[Entropy]

So selectivity is key, and representation of somethinig real is key. Blotches of paint on a canvas is not art. It's just blotches of paint on a canvas.

I don't agree. I don't think art has to particularly mean or represent anything. Jackson Pollack created art though many see it as just blotches of paint on a canvas.

 

[Eli26]

So if I have a 'feeling' in my lower abdomen, and I fart, I'm an artist? Because my feeling has been expressed.

What if I did it to make you think? Now I'm even more of an artist.

This is the best definition of art I've found: art is a recreation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgements.

'Metaphysical value judgments' just means those convictions which a person holds that determine what aspects of reality they consider to be most important. Usually, those convictions are sub-conscious, and an artist is not aware that that is what is guiding their creative process. When reality is recreated according to these judgements, it means that the non-essential elements of the subject are omitted so as to empasize the elements the artist wants the observer to pay attention to.

So selectivity is key, and representation of somethinig real is key. Blotches of paint on a canvas is not art. It's just blotches of paint on a canvas. That's as much art as "hufdaguivbdi wrhiof8a[9 r8yr[08g" is writing. Lots of things are expressions of emotion, and lots of things cause emotional reactions, but not all of those things are art.

Well said!

A very good and well expressed opinion.

 

[uscmhicks]

If you have an idea or feeling and feel the need to express it some how ( and do it of couse ) it is art. Whether it s a rolled up piece of paper with a bit of sticky tape on it just because you felt like it or its the new Mona Lisa .
Thats y thoughts anyway , I consider this speech art as I am showing you guys my feelings and thoughts of my opinion toward the word.