demagogue on 22/6/2006 at 23:26

---

There's gotta be a limit to this, though. I know people like to throw this kind of sentence around in conversations like this, but I don't think you can take it 100% seriously.

I mean, whatever it is, it still has to purport to be art. It still has to be a kind of visual expression, which means it still has to be expressive (it doesn't have to be expressive of anything in particular, most people nowadays think abstract art is still art, but it's still expressive, e.g., of certain moods or emotional tones), and it still has to be in a medium that maintains its expressiveness over time (so, e.g., I don't think a puddle of water on the ground could ever be art, or swirls of color in water). And, maybe my personal bias, but I tend to think that art should fit into a tradition or trend within the art world around it (even in rebellion to it) ... like there has to be some reason why the creator wants to purport for it to be art and not, e.g., a light fixture, and that reason has something to do with the art world and not, again, the light fixture community. It's the reasons why Hirst would purport to call this stuff art that should be important, with the design features just playing a secondary role to that, I'd think.

Which leads me to think that the boundaries of "art" really aren't all that subjective. My computer keyboard here doesn't purport to be art, the creator of it doesn't have any reason to want to call it art, so I shouldn't either. But Hirst evidently has reasons why he purports to call this stuff art, "life, death, and stuff" ... That's more than a lot of abstract paintings got.

What's subjective is how you'd evaluate art. That's a truism, I'd think... But even then, at least for professional art critics, it should tie into the traditions and norms within the art world, so its only subjective within certain boundaries.

OrbWeaver on 23/6/2006 at 16:06

---

I prefer to ignore all of the pretentious bickering about expression and meaning, and go by the more literal definition from the Latin ars meaning "skill".

As far as I am concerned "art" is anything which demonstrates skill on the part of the artist, irrespective of any social or emotional context. Of course there is still room for debate on what actually constitutes skill; while painting two stripes on a canvas may not require much skill with a brush, it is certainly skilful marketing if you can sell it for two point three million.

demagogue on 23/6/2006 at 17:56

---

I feel like rewording my original post (although I left it below), since it just lectures without really explaining why I care about this.

What I'm worried about is saying art is entirely subjective because it seems like a wall that stops artists expressing something through their art, or one person talking about art with a friend, like what they think the artist is trying to express or whatever. There has to be something public about it, I feel, or the "expression" part of art can't work ... and then the whole idea of going to a museum with someone to appreciate it together gets lost, which for me personally, at least, would suck. It's not that I think people can't decide for themselves what they think is art, but I worry about going the next step and saying "therefore, all artistic value is just for the individual person alone" because I like sharing ideas about art with other people and listening to their ideas, or even the artist himself says he was trying to express, and their ideas usually make sense to me. But to be fair, I don't think this is what you were trying to say in that quote (that it's all entirely subjective), and so I think this is just my own point that uses your quote as a springboard. I actually think what you were saying is much more reasonable than this.

Closer to what you were saying, though, I think if an artist really goes to an effort in attempting to expressing something, my thinking is we should give him the benefit of the doubt and admit he is trying to express something artistic unless he's going *way* overboard. So we may say "I don't like what you're saying" but we could still recognize it as an attempt to say something ("life and death or something"), and should have a good reason before we say "I don't recognize it as expressing anything at all.", at least IMO.

But I can admit there are limits here. I remember a story about one artist that threw some normal bricks off a building as an artistic statement or whatever. And I think here is one case where, no matter what he thinks he wants to say, we have a good reason to look at the guy with a deadpan face and just say, "Sorry, but you just threw some bricks off a building ... that doesn't say anything, not just to me, but to anyone. They weren't even colorful or anything, just some bricks..."

Anyway, I think that better explains my concern than my original post. But even here it's usually not that big a deal. Most people's intuitions are pretty good, I think, in distinguishing when an artist is really trying to express something and when he's just making noise or throwing some bricks off a building. And for truly horrible art maybe it is true that it says something to some people but not others and they should decide for themselves. But I still like the "benefit of the doubt" idea, e.g., it's what we use for other areas, like language.

-------------------------------------
[[original post]]:

If there's something I said that doesn't make sense you could tell me. As for your sentence that I quoted, sure it's unambiguous, but you can't seriously take it literally.

If I suddenly want to call the planet Mars art, or this raindrop, or this exact mixture of oxygen and nitrogen gas in front of me, that won't make any of these things art in virtue of my decision-by-fiat alone. My desire would be almost universally rejected as a statement of its artistic status. If I tried to say, well it's still art but just for me, then someone could just come back and say, "well, then you just don't know how to use the word 'art' properly so anyone knows what the hell you are talking about." (Maybe you'd say to me "You stupid asshat; of course I didn't intend my sentence to apply to those sorts of situations" ... but then that's just my point. You couldn't be.) On the other hand, some things, paintings well within a tradition, are widely regarded as "art" by long-standing convention. If you asked a guy next to you in a museum "Is this *really* art we're looking at? I mean come on: it's a painting!" he would probably turn and ask you "What the hell are you talking about? What else could it be!? When someone says 'art' this is the first thing I think about."

It is really the things outside a long-standing tradition but being treated as art by some people where the question even comes up. And that's where your sentence starts being more persuasive. So like so-called found art, something you pick up off the ground and call art (this was Breton's favored form), or Duchamp's toilet that he just signs and puts on display. These things were not created with an intention to be art, but they were put on display with the intention of prompting people to look at it as art. Does the word "art" apply to it? There are cues so that someone looking at Duchamp's toilet would know to look at it as art and not as a toilet, e.g., being on display in a museum exhibition, the label, etc. This isn't how anyone treats non-art; this is exactly how most people think art is treated. But there are conflicting conventions that prompt people to think "Well, this is just a toilet. There's nothing artistic about it at all." although even then they cannot deny that it's being treated as art by other people. The viewer's attitude towards it (e.g., decide for himself whether it constitutes art) is part of how that viewer would use the word "art" towards the object in talking with other people, but it is not the whole story ... because, for example, conflicting conventions are also at work in pushing his intuitions this way or that. That's the basic point I was trying to make.

Anyway, it's probably impossible to give a fair answer to "what is art" in the form of a short forum post. Better just google an essay on it and see what people who have thought about this question for a long time have to say as a good start (e.g., I liked this (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Coffeehouse/6831/whatsart.html) one, although it's still lacking somewhat, but a good start).

edt: some other crap I thought about: Usually artists create something as a kind of expression, they want to say something, or make some impression, to the world. And if we reserve the right to tell them their creation isn't really art, it's like saying we won't allow them to try to express something artistic to us, or to me. I don't even care so much about all the technical side of it; I just think we should have a good reason for telling him he's not actually expressing something to me like he wants to. It's not just that we don't like what he is saying, but that we won't recognize it as saying anything at all; like saying: you failed in making art and instead just made a sink, or just a useless collection of junk that doesn't say anything to me. If the artist is really making an effort to express something we should have a really good reason to say he's under a delusion.

Deep Qantas on 3/7/2006 at 05:37

---

I think OrbWeaver meant that making art is itself a skill.

All in all, quality aside, I think the only prerequisite to art is that you're doing art on purpose. Doesn't matter how crazy a method you use as long as you're doing it with the purpose of doing art.

I won't fault anyone for dismissing 99% of the crap people come up with as "not art" tho.

:thumb:

Para?noid on 13/7/2006 at 03:19

---

NOBODY EVER CARED, AND IN ABOUT 3 MONTHS TIME WHEN EVERYTHING ELSE HAS ABANDONED YOU, WE'LL GIVE A SHIT FOR ABOUT 2 MINUTES


2 MINUTES


HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL, YOU LACKLUSTRE, RETARDED LITTLE SHIT?
SMALL?


YEAH WELL GET USED TO IT BECAUSE YOUR PROSE IS FUCKING <b>LIES</b>. FUCK OFF AND GO HOME, FATTY. GO ON, GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. YOU CAN'T SPEAK SHIT, YOU PARASITE MOTHERFUCKER, YOU DON'T HAVE A SINGLE IDEA IN YOUR FUCKED UP LITTLE HEAD. FUCK OFF. GET OUT. KILL YOURSELF, LOSER.