Art vs Equipment

[Roger Hicks]

If this is so, how many percent do we need?

And how many percent of what -- the population of a region, a city, a country, the whole world? Some percentage of art critics, of RFF members, of government heads or Nobel prize winners?

Come on, this consensus theory is clearly nonsense. If someone regards something as art you simply cannot prove the opposite. You can only say: well, it's not art to me.

Dear Thomas,

At which point, has the word 'art' any meaning at all? Words are, after all, ways to communicate. What are you communicating if you say "This is art" or "This isn't art"? (Whether you add 'for me' or not.)

I'm not saying the question is unanswerable, just that I can't answer it. I look forward to your definition of 'art'.

(Unless, of course, it is that 'Art is what artists produce', as this simply pushes the definition back one to 'What is an artist?' Though come to think of it, this may actually be a more fruitful area for discussion.)

Cheers,

R.

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

I suppose this could be art?...or maybe just an RFF 'show us ya bike' candidate.
Sorry!

 

[slm]

At which point, has the word 'art' any meaning at all? Words are, after all, ways to communicate. What are you communicating if you say "This is art" or "This isn't art"? (Whether you add 'for me' or not.)

Wiki says: Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, sculpture, and paintings. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.

I would tend to think that the generally accepted meaning of the word art corresponds (in part or in whole) to the above statement.

I still maintain, though, that to say "I am an artist" in the sense that "I produce candidates for aesthetic appreciation" is pointless. You produce what you produce. Society then judges (a) whether or not it is art and (b) whether or not it is any good. Those judgements vary with time and place.

I agree with the second part of this, that society will judge the products of your labour as either art or not. But saying "I am an artist" isn't pointless, how else do you convey to someone "I endeavor to produce art" ?

Cheers
Steven

 

[Jamie123]

If this is so, how many percent do we need?

And how many percent of what -- the population of a region, a city, a country, the whole world? Some percentage of art critics, of RFF members, of government heads or Nobel prize winners?

Come on, this consensus theory is clearly nonsense. If someone regards something as art you simply cannot prove the opposite. You can only say: well, it's not art to me.

You clearly miss the point. It's not about how many percent of what part of the society decide what is art. Sure, I could say it only takes one curator at the MoMA to establish something as art but I would be disregarding the fact that he himself doesn't make his decisions isolated from the rest of society.

Sure, nowadays you can present most things as art and no one will bother proving the opposite. I can put a rock in sock and call it an artwork and few would disagree. That doesn't mean that they're just going by my word. The reason why they accept it as an artwork is that there have been other artworks like it in the past. With my rock in a sock I am not 'defining' art, I'm just playing by the rules that have been established long before me.

However, let's make another example (it will be a distasteful one but that's the point).
Someone kills a baby, puts it on tape and calls it performance art. Surely in such a case the reaction from the public would be disgust. The reaction from the police would be to arrest this guy. The reaction from the judicial system would be to put him on trial and put him in jail. Medical circles would assess this person's mental health and probably come to the conclusion that he is dillusional.

Would art critics and gallerists start discussing the merits of this guy's work and whether it is really art? Definitely not. They would not even consider this as a candidate for an artwork and they would not feel that their professional field is any more fit to speak about this case than any other part of society.

This baby killer has not only failed to establish himself as an artist, he's also failed to be part of society as a whole. This would be akin with a person 'defining' himself as someone who can walk through walls, only to find himself lying on the floor with a headache.

 

[Andy Kibber]

Since the mid-to-late 19th century, society has been ever more open about what is admitted to the canon of 'art'. Does this mean that 'art' is now so broad a term as to be meaningless?

Pretty much, in my estimation. That's why I'm quite happy to allow the creator to say whether or not their creation is art. I'm more concerned with whether its interesting, skillful, insightful, etc.

The creation can, of course, be more than one thing. It can be both art and infanticide, a urinal, elephant dung, a pickled shark, etc.

 

[Sparrow]

The rest of the world.😕

To drive a car you need a license/permit issued by the appropriate authority.

Same thing to fly an airplane or to practice medicine.

Who issues Artists Permits? Please tell me. How much do they cost, and are there reductions for minors?

The viewer, listener, or whatever ... obviously .. my girl Alice is an artist because her dad thinks she is .... she thinks she is a dancer, because she's not that pretentious and she is wrong, as you are

 

[Jamie123]

If you can't answer the question you don't know what art is, but you tell us it is for society to decide.



I though we were discussing "photographic" art. Not infanticide, nor urinals.


This thread is called "Art vs Equipment".
If you people don't know what art is, then possibly you could do better by discussing equipment.

You thought we were only discussing photographic art? Have you been reading any of the posts?

 

[FrankS]

"You people..." ?

Who are you calling "you people"?

 

[kevin m]

Dear Kevin,

Sorry. I just never encountered anyone else who said that society didn't exist.

And you still haven't. You just made that up. But straw men, ad-hominem attacks and general nastiness are all parts of the cloud of chaff you throw up whenever you sense that an argument isn't going quite your way. All your pretensions to civility aside, you seem quite incapable of holding a civilized discussion.

 

[kevin m]

... my girl Alice is an artist because her dad thinks she is ....

No, your girl Alice is an artist if SHE thinks she is. Period. End of sentence.

Her actual talent, success and place in society are all separate issues.

 

[Tompas]

At which point, has the word 'art' any meaning at all? Words are, after all, ways to communicate.

I'm sure that two given people are way more likely to have the same thing in mind when they say 'this is a house' than when they say 'this is art'.

But just because I probably have something different in mind than you have when we both think 'art', the term isn't meaningless. It's just something humans should always be aware of.

What are you communicating if you say "This is art" or "This isn't art"? (Whether you add 'for me' or not.)

I'm not saying the question is unanswerable, just that I can't answer it. I look forward to your definition of 'art'.

That's a very nice way to practically force me to answer. 🙂

I only have my very own, subjective definition of art that very roughly phrased goes something like this:

Art is something
- that does not fulfill a purpose/need,
- that required a certain amount of skill to produce,
- that has a message/something to say (to me).

I freely make exceptions/break my own rules. Usually, e.g., buildings are not art for me (they fulfill a need; architecture is generally a craft, not an art) but sometimes a building is so beautiful that I count it as art anyway.

Quite often I see something that does not tell me anything, but I feel that it (or precisely the artist, of course) wants to express something. I'm quite willing to count that as art, too, although I probably neither understand nor like it. This, e.g., is the case with the work of Tichy which started this thread.

Sometimes stuff widely regarded as art (e.g. white cirle on white canvas) is just nothing to me.

But in general I think I do not very often say (or think) 'this is art/a work of art'. Much more often I think or feel something like: this is wonderful/great/beautiful/shockingly good, etc., and say: what a great photograph! What a wonderful painting! What a marvellous movie!

(Unless, of course, it is that 'Art is what artists produce', as this simply pushes the definition back one to 'What is an artist?' Though come to think of it, this may actually be a more fruitful area for discussion.)

Easy. 😉

An artist is someone whose main occupation is creating art.

Ok with me is also: an artist is someone who regularly produces a work of art.

By both definitions I am not an artist. My pictures are too rarely good enough...

Sorry for the long rant. It's Roger's fault. 🙂
Sorry also for my non-perfect use of the English language. My fault. I hope you get what I wanted to say anyway.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Pretty much, in my estimation. That's why I'm quite happy to allow the creator to say whether or not their creation is art. I'm more concerned with whether its interesting, skillful, insightful, etc.

Well, yes, this is my point. I'm not trying to stop anyone calling himself or herself an artist. I just can't see what it achieves, i.e. I believe it to be pointless. As I said, any fool can do it.

We all produce art of one kind of another, from the moment we learn to scribble, quite possibly before. To say, "I am an artist" is at this level on a par with saying "I am human." And if you produce something, point to it, and say, "This is art," you are applying a meaningless label. You are saying, "I intend this to be art." That doesn't necessarily make it art.

Either it's art or it isn't, and as I've already said, different sections of society will have different views on what is and what isn't. Their views will depend on who they are, where they are and when they are, hence my argument about Pollock.

Right now we'll accept Jamie's sock-in-a-rock, or at least, some people will, especially if supported by an Artist's Statement. But that wasn't always the case, and it is possible (though I admit unlikely) that it might be dismissed as non-art 100 years from now.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Jamie123]

Grammatical nonsense.

"Society" is nothing more than an observation of other individuals made by an individual. Even if 10,000,000 individuals are in complete agreement, it's still 10,000,000 individual decisions that are being made. So "society" can't admire/praise/buy or any such thing, only individuals do that.

This is actually quite an antiquated view in sociology of what society is, one that you're obviously entitled to have'. Sociology used to be regarded as mass psychology, i.e. if you want to know how a certain group in society behaves you just have to look at how the individuals in this group behave.

I, and probably most sociologists nowadays, would disagree.

 

[Sparrow]

No, your girl Alice is an artist if SHE thinks she is. Period. End of sentence.

Her actual talent, success and place in society are all separate issues.

no I cannot agree, art exists between it's production and it's appreciation ... can you not agree to that?

she is now 17 and only in pre-elementary so she'll never be a "success" that isn't the point

 

[Tompas]

You clearly miss the point.

I don't think so. You think 'society' or some 'consensus' defines what art is and what is not.

I disagree. For me, I define that.

 

[Roger Hicks]

And you still haven't. You just made that up. But straw men, ad-hominem attacks and general nastiness are all parts of the cloud of chaff you throw up whenever you sense that an argument isn't going quite your way. All your pretensions to civility aside, you seem quite incapable of holding a civilized discussion.

Um... Pots? Kettles?

Would you care to address a question I posed to you earlier: do you deny that a civil society is a group of individuals who agree about many things, disagree about many others, and base their lives on a broad, shared consensus? Or that those agreements and beliefs change with time?

Where is the straw man? You wrote ""Society" is nothing more than an observation of other individuals made by an individual. Even if 10,000,000 individuals are in complete agreement, it's still 10,000,000 individual decisions that are being made. So "society" can't admire/praise/buy or any such thing, only individuals do that. Individuals." This looks very like a Thatcherite denial of the existence of society to me. I apologize if I misunderstood you, but you might ask yourself if you could have been clearer.

Where is the ad hominem attack, except for the plumber's wife snipe for which I have already apologized? Sincerely, I might add.

Where is the 'general nastiness'? Personally I'd call it 'robustness' and a 'a willingness to defend a position' If you don't see it that way, it's a pity, but I'm not going to get too worried about it.

Where is the 'chaff'? Of course there are always asides and wrong turnings in any dscussion like this, but I don't see any chaff.

And, in general, I think I am actually quite civil, most of the time. There are only a few people who get as upset as you. If I were permanently uncivil, I can't help feeling I'd have rather more enemies than I do. Overall, I suspect -- I can't prove it, of course -- that more people like me than don't. If not, well, enough people do like me that I'll live with it.

You have grown steadily angrier since you joined this thread, but unlike (for example) Nextreme or Thomas, you have not really put up any arguments. You have been perfectly happy to call my arguments nonsense, and to ignore such points as the fact that a football team can do things, as a group, that the individual cannot.

Perhaps before you write yet another angry reply you might care to wait a few minutes and see how I respond to Thomas.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Jamie123]

I don't think so. You think 'society' or some 'consensus' defines what art is and what is not.

I disagree. For me, I define that.

No, I do not think society as a whole defines or decides what art is. Again, you're missing the point.
What I'm saying is that you can define for yourself whatever you want but unless you find a way to communicate this to other people you'll just be speaking your own secret language. You can also define 'for yourself' that you're Napoleon. That's what society calls crazy (which, in this colloquial use of the word, means nothing more than that you're unfit to live in this society).

I don't know what kind of (supposed) art you produce but I'm pretty sure you will actually find other people to agree with you, so you're probably fine.

 

[kevin m]

no I cannot agree, art exists between it's production and it's appreciation ... can you not agree to that?...

Sure! I think "art" is a relationship between viewer and viewed (when that's applicable.) But I still think the statement "I am an artist" is one that cannot be argued with. 🙂

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . But in general I think I do not very often say (or think) 'this is art/a work of art'. Much more often I think or feel something like: this is wonderful/great/beautiful/shockingly good, etc., and say: what a great photograph! What a wonderful painting! What a marvellous movie!

. . .

An artist is someone whose main occupation is creating art.

Ok with me is also: an artist is someone who regularly produces a work of art.

By both definitions I am not an artist. My pictures are too rarely good enough...

Sorry for the long rant. It's Roger's fault. 🙂
Sorry also for my non-perfect use of the English language. My fault. I hope you get what I wanted to say anyway.

Dear Thomas,

There is absolutely no need to apologize for lack of clarity. You write and think perfectly clearly.

Highlight 1: Yes. This is why I find the chest beating of "I am an artist" to be pointless. Don't tell me: show me. Don't say "This is my Art" with a capital A. Show me something that makes me say, what a great photograph! What a wonderful painting! What a marvellous movie!

Highlight 2: You don't wish to call yourself an artist, because you do not think your pictures are good enough, often enough. Well, just as I reserve the right to say, "You call yourself an artist? Why?" I also reserve the right to say to someone who diffidently doesn't call himself an artist, "That is a work of art." It's the end result that matters, not what you call yourself.

It occurs to me also that I may not have made myself clear enough in the use of the word 'society'. Everyone is a product of the society or societies in which they live or have lived, and their aesthetic sensibilities are shaped by those societies. Hence my argument about whether Pollock would be considered an artist in 1850 or 1350. So although you, Thomas, reserve (with perfect right and justice) to decide for yourself what is art and what isn't, 'yourself' is a product of society.

It was unfortunately a case of "I knew what I meant." I've been discussing this whole concept for several years with an artist friend. We have used the idea of the art of a given period being defined by the society in which it is created, and I should perhaps have taken greater pains to clarify that concept.

But for helping me clarify my ideas, and for encouraging me to be less careless in my assumptions and summaries, I would like to thank you and all others who have taken the trouble to argue rationally.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[kevin m]

Can't really help you, Roger. If you don't understand that you're employing less-than-civil tactics to advance your argument, or that grammar has its own rules that exist whether or not you agree to them, then it's unlikely anything I could say would move our little discussion forward.