Philosophical question

Roger Hicks said:
Except, of course, that as soon as you admit the Dadaist philosophy, you have an infinite regression. To quote from a Cath Milne song based on one of my poems, "Looking for the lie behind/The truth behind/The lie behind/The truth behind/The lie...ie..ie."

Or, alternatively, the old Buddhist argument that the only perfect opposite of a thing is, in fact, the thing itself. As soon as you remove every single aspect or attribute of a single thing, but leave everything else, all that is left is a negative image or cast of the thing, which can only be filled by the thing itself.

Cheers,

R.
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Yes, I'm convinced that's true. Thankfully I'm not defending Dada here, I think it had little merit in comparison to the English modernists at that time anyway.

However, in common with any iconoclastic movement they had to have an icon to clast and that is certainly a reasoned and conceptual exercise ... even the Readymade works were thought through, conceptual, in nature ... searched out art, as opposed to found art, intended to shock the viewer and to undermine the ethos of the time
 
peteography said:
I honestly believe that our subconscious is a lot more in tune to these things than our concious mind is.
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I have the same feeling: that our unconscious mind and intuitive nature is more artistic and has more potential than our conscious, rational, analytic, and reasoned side.
 
The highest level of achievement in any action is the point at which it becomes natural and intuitive, without thought. That's not the same as saying the everyone who does something without thinking about it is good at it.
 
art is usually 'perceived' rather than 'made'.
I still wonder why people make such a big deal out of this word and term, especially on photography forums and the like...
 
Sparrow said:
. . . they had to have an icon to clast and that is certainly a reasoned and conceptual exercise ... even the Readymade works were thought through, conceptual, in nature ... searched out art, as opposed to found art, intended to shock the viewer and to undermine the ethos of the time
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First sentence: gorgeous!

Second/third sentences: a fascinating distinction, but I'd suggest that ALL found art is, to some extent, searched out art.

Thanks for some lovely ideas.

Cheers,

R.
 
SimonSawSunlight said:
art is usually 'perceived' rather than 'made'.
I still wonder why people make such a big deal out of this word and term, especially on photography forums and the like...
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Regardless of the medium, defining art is a social responsibility. If no-one rises to the task, we lose the meaning of the word and end up with a sectioned cow in formaldehyde. 🙂
 
Roger Hicks said:
First sentence: gorgeous!

Second/third sentences: a fascinating distinction, but I'd suggest that ALL found art is, to some extent, searched out art.

Thanks for some lovely ideas.

Cheers,

R.
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I think we disagree ... but leaving aside the politics of conceptual Dadaism, consider this instead;

You will have come across collections of dry moths and butterflies pinned in glass cases eagerly collected by entomologists over the years? now compare those to Daemon Hurst's butterfly "paintings" ... both are found or searched out works, both are simply butterflies in glass cases. Are they both art?
 
mdarnton said:
The highest level of achievement in any action is the point at which it becomes natural and intuitive, without thought....
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I think being gifted has a lot to do with achieving these in art.. I remember the first time I saw Ruggiero Ricci in 1968 to perform Paganini's D major. I was a student then; expecting someone slim, tall and somewhat diabolical in appearance like the composer himself, there was a dimunitive figure on the stage with irritatingly short looking arms to make me somehow concerned about his performance (frankly). Minutes later however I figured out why he was called Ruggiero Ricci 😀 .. Years later I happened to know Itzhak Perlman and Michel Petrucciani to wonder how God loves someones among us to grant a perfection not to be achieved by other mortals no matter how we afford and strive for it.

As for Lartigue, I believe he belongs to this category..
 
d_ross said:
On that theory alone the cow, or a shark in same, is art isn't it?
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The art-going public is divided, but investors are defecating in their pants to own Hirst pieces. By that measure, he's a very successful artist and shrewd businessman. I'm no slave to representational art, and do believe in maximum artistic license, but the attitude and practices of Hirst are questionable (even for someone pushing social boundaries). From Wikipedia:

Hirst's first major "animal" installation, "A Thousand Years", consisted of a large glass case containing maggots and flies feeding off a rotting cow's head. At this time, Hirst said, "I can’t wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it. At the moment if I did certain things people would look at it, consider it and then say 'f off'. But after a while you can get away with things."

And...

"Art goes on in your head," he says. "If you said something interesting, that might be a title for a work of art and I'd write it down. Art comes from everywhere. It's your response to your surroundings. There are on-going ideas I've been working out for years, like how to make a*rainbowin a gallery. I've always got a massive list of titles, of ideas for shows, and of works without titles."

That he delegates production makes him more a manager or visionary, rather than an artist. As such, his body of work lies somewhere between talking pieces and Pottery Barn.

In my opinion, art is a journey in search of the Truth. Glib, but there it is. 🙂
 
As a photographer it is all the more obvious,more so than with any other medium, that you are recording art not creating it.ART IS THERE TO BE DISCOVERED and it is your ability to see what is all around you that determines your artistic merit,but this is a personal journey.We are closer to life than any other medium,we share an immediacy of a situation with our subject and possibly climb with them.
 
Postulate:
The observer of art needs to be conscious.
Consciousness need not be present in any other step.
Art is a complex sense present in the mind of the observer.
Would explain different tastes in art,and etc.
 
Hi. Er, I just wanted to read through the recent posts here as an escape from the M10 speculative thread.

I agreed with Stewart on intention. The choice to take hold of a found object and place it in an artistic context might be a sign of such an intention. I am more comfortable calling arrangements of found objects art.

Meanwhile, the first quote from Hirst above is reasonably damning, and the second one probably not. This sort of modern art that requires so much intellectual activity sparked by such banal or repellent subject matter is just tedious. I might like reading Adorno, but at least I have opened a book to do so, and I am not alway sure I like reading him, but I come back for the exhausting mental gymnastics deliberately.

Reading Borges can be like this, but the reward seems ever-present. Hirst's maggots: I'd rather spend the time reading philosophy or history or cosmology than subject myself to his millennial view.

Back to the gallery (here.)
 
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