But is it *art*?

[John Bell]

But is it art?

[B_B]

from the article: "shows the vacuous nature of some of contemporary art"

hear, hear!

[John Bell]

It reveals the vacuous nature of contemporary art...

...as well as the vacuous nature of contemporary art critics and cognescenti. And museum curators.

[John B]

bull**** baffles brains.
as me old cockney mate used to say.

[huisjen]

I figger if you have to ask if it's art, then it probably isn't.

Dan

[S/V Laura Ellen]

1,000 hours of staring

I think the art by Tom Friedman, titled "1,000 Hours of Staring " is the most ridiculous thing passed off as art. It is a blank canvas that the artist stared at for 1,000 hours. This piece if work has received international acclaim in the art world. Go figure!

[JimD]

Most of us have chanced upon something that seemed incomplete, or missing some aspect, austere, enigmatic, etc., and been quite moved by it. So it could be art intended to evoke that experience. However, typically for something to be art it has to be intentional. It has to be designated as art by the artist. So in this case it isn't art. Its a bunch of stupid jurors.

[TomF]

Exactly Jim.

There's no piece of classical music more moving than the end of Bach's "The Art of Fugue." It simply peters out ... unfinished when Bach died. Poignancy you can touch.

But this, is not that.

[Bob Adams]

Well there was the "Artist" who canned his own excrement....

[JimD]

Well there was the "Artist" who canned his own excrement....

And I think an effective bit of performance art would have been if he'd opened the can and ate it. Audience participation even better.

[Wild Dingo]

"art" is bull****... and "artists" of today dont want to hear anything but vain glorifyin ego stroking pandering... give em the honest truth about one of their works... just one... as the actor Jack Nicholson said in a few good men said "the truth? you dont want the truth!" and artists are the same

art critics pander to that ego vainty strokin bull****

[shamus]

Actually, looking at that head, I think the judges got it right.(TIC)

[skuthorp]

The Ern Malley Hoax

Dingo, the critics need artists more than the other way round, they get paid better for a start and most artists are because they are, financial gain is welcome but incidental.
Take a look here http://www.ernmalley.com/
The whole affair was set up to debunk a critic, and it worked magnificently but in the process it created something of it's own. There's more interest today than at the time and the 'poems' have recently been republished.
'Art' is truly in the eye of the beholder, what's the quote -- 'I don't know anything about art but I know what I like'

[Wild Wassa]

Dear Skippers, there appears to be a gap between what still matters nowadays for most and what is still percieved as being art by those really in the neo-know.

As I mentioned before on Jack's thread, art is not about pretty pictures ('pretty pictures' covers a multitude of visually appealing indulgences and sensually appealing subjects all well executed as artworks, they are a dime a dozen so they are worthless exept as eye candy), real art is about filling in the gaps in the artifact called the Art Industry. Artists with their work fill in a piece of the jig-saw called 'Art Industry' with their different artifacts. The more different the artifact the closer it will fit the gap. This good fit is often called "what the f' is this crap called, Art?" It is no good doing or producing artifacts that others can do, because someone will always do it better ... so you produce real crap, which is what is needed and not imitated So artists fill gaps with their crap, if it happend to be appealing or visually pleasing crap, while remaining different, then die.

When artists die their crap is more valuable to people who deal in what has become a mature crap network, well worked by manure merchants ... who's crap doesn't stink.

As a dedicated producer of real crap ... I can honestly say, my crap stinks more than most ... so I'm more collectable if you have the breathing apparatus called a climate controlled and haemetically sealed viewing gallery to protect the deluded public. If I just produced stuff worth looking at (which I do for myself), who would honestly look at it, HISTORY? Stuff History.

Art is a game to be played. The more radical the artwork ... the more conservative is the artist. Without a thorough foundation in Art, the techniques and the history ... how would one know where their crap fits? I'm not an artist I'm a gap filler.

Warren.

[huisjen]

"the artifact called the Art Industry" Yeah, right.

Warren, even though you are a professional, and I'm an amature at best, I'm going to have to disagree with you.

I think to some extent, art is universal. That's why Europeans and Americans have ripped buddhist murals off cave walls in China, stolen things from tombs in Egypt, and value decorated Greek amphora and clay figurines from the middle east. But the stuff of empty canvases and unadorned plinths is not art. There is a self absorbed set, who pay you money, who think some of this stuff is art, but I have no reason to take their words for it when the vast majority of humanity disagrees.

And just as I don't believe the mind is separate from the body, I don't believe we can separate art from craft. I heard about an American watching African boys patting manure into bricks for fuel, and the boys were making geometric finger patterns in the bricks. The American asked why, and the boys looked at him incredulously. They said, "To make them beautiful".

Art is not a salesman's industrial construct. It's not a dry academic exercise in doing what nobody has found worth bothering with yet. It has to stand on its own. It's about what objects we choose to surround ourselves, both decorative and functional. So yes, pretty pictures are art. So is furnature, buildings, clothing, and cups and plates and spoons. We all have stuff around that isn't art too. Generally, that stuff is raw materials for making other stuff, which will have an element of art in it.

Dan