RichC
Well-known
Well, yes and no...
Yes, putting some things into categories may be incorrect - and lazy. But certain trends are undeniable, and I think it's safe to label art as pre-modern, modern and postmodern, reflecting broad changes in society. Defining their meaning and time-spans is more problematic - but it's also safe to say that the emphasis of art in these three categories is different:
- Pre-modern (religion, narrative, etc.)
- Modern (form following function, "art for art's sake", etc.)
- Postmodern (breaking down of boundaries, socially/culturally concerned, etc.).
Jack Conrad
Well-known
Originally Posted by mdarnton
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
and, apparently fiction is truth
CAPS LOCK IS ON? .......
CAPS LOCK IS POWER.
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
What can anybody make of it if they haven't seen the art it goes with? I'm willing to believe they know their art better than anybody else knows their art - but without seeing what they've made I don't have context to interpret their statement with.
Chris101
summicronia
Yeah, I don't know what "verity" means, but I do not believe that truth is a necessary component of art. In fact, I rarely use it in my artsy stuff. In fact, art mostly deceives.
Margu
Established
he/she is right.
art is a superfluous cliched word while verity is a serious word reserved for usage in serious topics.
art is a superfluous cliched word while verity is a serious word reserved for usage in serious topics.
ABrosig
Well-known
I think that the person who wrote that introduction is falling into the trap of equating pretentiousness with profundity. The best introduction I ever saw at an exhibition went something like: "I hope you enjoy my paintings".
There were a lot of sold dots on the canvasses and that was on the second day.
Well said, sirs! (Or madams. Guess I'm guilty of pretentiously making assumptions.)
Sparrow
Veteran
... so true, even today
emasterphoto
Established
noisycheese
Normal(ish) Human
What do I think?
I think it sounds like a semi-literate 22 year old who has no real world experience is making a futile attempt at sounding august and authoritative by engaging in pretentious sermonizing and intellectual masturbation.
alistair.o
Well-known
Rich, thanks for your thoughts in this thread. I am not certain though whether you were being facetious and thus stating in the the 'bold above' as a corellation of photoshop, staging etc.?
Could you clarify please. Thanks
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
Without context it's hard to comment, but I would guess since they're painting - and since they also claim to have a "realistic approach" that what they're talking about is related to visual technique, not to a message or theme in the work.
Naive art for instance may use realistic painting effects in a way which does not seek to truthfully represent a scene or subject, same with surrealist painting, etc. If one paints a scene with the aim of being as objective as possible I think one could argue that that does indeed "deaden" the potential of the medium, although I'm not sure I'd say it nullifies art.
Naive art for instance may use realistic painting effects in a way which does not seek to truthfully represent a scene or subject, same with surrealist painting, etc. If one paints a scene with the aim of being as objective as possible I think one could argue that that does indeed "deaden" the potential of the medium, although I'm not sure I'd say it nullifies art.
RichC
Well-known
Not being facetious but stating a fact.
At best a photograph is selective about any truth it shows - even assuming that we take the image as an exact objective record of a scene, we only see what the photographer wants us to: what's outside of the frame may change the context entirely (and that's ignoring any technological impacts - influence of the lens, blur, B&W vs colour, colour accuracy...). That's what my example with the alternative framings of the "dead" person underlines - depending on the crop, the photographer implies different causes of death.
At worst, we can't trust a photograph at all, especially with today's ease of manipulation.
That said, I know truth and photography is kind of a big deal these days, with certain photographers getting rather hot under the collar, but I personally think it's a non-issue. Think about films - as in moving images: fiction (movies) and non-fiction (documentaries) have co-existed for over century, yet we typically have no problem with this, and find it easy to decide which we're looking at simply from the context. In fact, we enjoy spoofs that blur them, such as "Spinal Tap".
I suppose photographs are more problematic re. truth vs fiction if you're looking at only a single photograph. You'd have the same problem if, say, you saw a still from a movie or a short extract of video. In these cases, you don't have enough context.
So perhaps the way forwards is the death of the single photograph, with photographers increasingly creating multiple images - albums, projects. This is already happening at a very fast rate in many areas of photography (excluding documentary, which has always worked in series), and it is becoming unusual to find a contemporary art photographer who creates single, standalone images (I don't and never will).
Another marker of this trend for multiple images to provide context is the rise of the photobook - once a publishing niche, it has increased in importance massively over the past decade, to the extent that if you're a professional photographic journalist or artist, producing a book as the end point of a project is almost an expectation.
L Collins
Well-known
Art School Twaddle. She'll grow out of it, hopefully.
Any show of visual art that has to have an explanation attached to the work itself is, IMO, deficient. The work either works, or it doesn't, and thats a function of its aesthetics, both as singular works and as a body of work. Explanation just needlessly circumscribes the potential effect of the work.
Plus, I've never met a really good visual artist who had any real idea about what the work meant. The best answer, when asked, "what does it mean?" is usually to point at it and say "It means that."
Any show of visual art that has to have an explanation attached to the work itself is, IMO, deficient. The work either works, or it doesn't, and thats a function of its aesthetics, both as singular works and as a body of work. Explanation just needlessly circumscribes the potential effect of the work.
Plus, I've never met a really good visual artist who had any real idea about what the work meant. The best answer, when asked, "what does it mean?" is usually to point at it and say "It means that."
Margu
Established
i think its an unwritten rule or something but an "artist" should not try to be a philosopher. for example using the word truth so casually is only something that an artist would do.
Marco Milazzo
Member
Going back to the original post, I think the student meant to say something like "Literalness is the enemy of art." Ansel Adams often repeated that idea.
Monochrom
Well-known
Quote:
There is an emphasis on mood in my paintings, and the tone is often defined by subtle choices in lighting, color, perspective and weather. Despite my realistic approach, I believe that verity in work deadens the experience and essentially nullifies art.
wow
Verity? linking with such concepts like "mood" "subtle choices" "realistic aproach" "essentially" and the largest concept used "ART"!?!?!
This is just text that could be applied to any kind of (artistic?) expression...it´s so ambiguous (and should b 4 sure) that you don´t even have to se any pictures to just eat this lines up. It´s totally self contained and means nothing & everything.
But of course readers may have their own opoinions and feelings about the orchestra of concepts used in the statement...
And for sure we should understand what the artist means by verity...that only sign is an extense concept...
If he is an student it should be nice to look for their plastic concepts and influences "and solutions"
To give us the real message. That is his own view over his own world
There is an emphasis on mood in my paintings, and the tone is often defined by subtle choices in lighting, color, perspective and weather. Despite my realistic approach, I believe that verity in work deadens the experience and essentially nullifies art.
wow
Verity? linking with such concepts like "mood" "subtle choices" "realistic aproach" "essentially" and the largest concept used "ART"!?!?!
This is just text that could be applied to any kind of (artistic?) expression...it´s so ambiguous (and should b 4 sure) that you don´t even have to se any pictures to just eat this lines up. It´s totally self contained and means nothing & everything.
But of course readers may have their own opoinions and feelings about the orchestra of concepts used in the statement...
And for sure we should understand what the artist means by verity...that only sign is an extense concept...
If he is an student it should be nice to look for their plastic concepts and influences "and solutions"
To give us the real message. That is his own view over his own world
Major Tom
Established
It's about having acuity, not accuracy, in other words.
I find it funny, when someone reproduces a photo of someone in some other medium like painting or drawing with complete (and obsessive) accuracy, people generally have few qualms about calling it art and praising it as such. If someone took a photo of some two dimensional artwork, a glorified scan, and presented it to an audience I doubt they'd be as enthusiastic. Maybe there is more labor and skill is required on the dutifully faithful draftsman's part than the photographer's, but the end result is the same.
RichC
Well-known
Sparrow
Veteran
... so a photo of a ballerina would lack integrity simply because of the medium of its reproduction?
Major Tom
Established
Someone takes a photo of the Mona Lisa, just the Mona Lisa, as if for a print or poster. Someone else draws it in exactitude with pencil. One will be regarded as just a reproduction and the other, perhaps, as something a bit more. As to whether this is actually the case, I make no prescription.