|
Would you call this Art? (pg. 6)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Acton
Ask yourself, can randomness create patterns?
This is a serious question by the way.
Do you really look at those paintings and see total randomness? |
It depends on how technical your definition of a "pattern" is, because a pattern can simply be a short-term repetitive sequence in data which indeed crop up temporarily in total randomness. In fact, the human brain has a tendency towards pattern-seeking even where there isn't any, which is the source of many irrationalities and superstitions. This is the core concept, as I take it, of Pollock's work - to create a canvas of visual information created through very specific processes that is consequently both deliberate and random. It invites the viewer to study it and try and find patterns, which in itself becomes the "meaning" people tend to crave from art, as it becomes a commentary on the arbitrary nature of art and the role the viewer has in imbuing a piece with significance. Pollock was painting years before chaos theory and fractals were even proposed, so I seriously doubt his art is consciously mathematical. What's more important is that you, with mathematical leanings, choose to see mathematics in the piece. And they may well be there.
The thing about post-modernist art (and I use the term in as much a historical sense as philosophical) is that it is most commonly meta-art, and its meaning is derived more from its commentary or subversion of art as a medium or concept. These kind of pieces tend to require either a knowledge of art history and discourse, or at the very least background information on the compositional techniques. A lot of people may find this elitist or esoteric or just outright wankery, but it had become very difficult to do anything genuinely new with art without becoming reflective on a meta-level about the process and the medium in itself.
(I remember making this point while drunk in an art gallery at 11am after a night out to some middle aged woman who had chided me for reading the plaque next to some cubist piece or other, with her pretentious insistence that one should just "look at the piece and decide what it means to me.")
So Pollock's paintings may appear to be random splatters on a canvas (and, in a sense, they are), but the point is basically that those splatters are set up to be put in a certain context where they gain meaning through the complicated relationships enacted thereafter. I doubt personally that Pollock did them specifically to comment on one specific external context (such as mathematical randomness).
Anyway, that's my perspective on the whole issue, even if such a post is wasted in a thread that opens with the statement "I know what looks good and what doesn't" and hurtles merrily downhill from there.
PS: I've actually had a short story published in which a man splatters randomly on a canvas to impress an art-student girl and ends up making millions from it, only for his followers to read a non-existent and entirely more macabre message in his "art". You can read it in THIS anthology. PLUG PLUG PLUG. |
|
|
| Spacey Orange |
no offense intended, but your comments reads (and i don't blame you necessarily) like a a theologian's explanations of and trying to give meaning to time and space, the known and the unknown, and random acts in the universe. in other words, just because the mind can think a complex thought doesn't necessarily make valid, or even reasonable for that matter.
ps. do you not sleep? |
|
|
| SYSTEM-J |
If you have a reason why you think my comments are not valid, please share it. I'd rather not hear some vague dismissal of points which are widely accepted in critical and academic circles, unless you're levelling a broadside at the art world in general.
And I work night shifts, so I am awake at odd hours. |
|
|
| Floorfiller |
| quote: | Originally posted by EddieZilker
|
i'm pretty sure LBJ is sexting in this one... :p
on subject.
i never have been a fan of more modern art. i think a lot of it tries too hard, but others are right after you learn a little bit about the history of different movements you can at least appreciate what the were trying to do or say. doesn't mean i'm gonna hang it on my wall though. |
|
|
| Joss Weatherby |
what in teh ... floorfiller.... wtf...
:wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: |
|
|
| Meat187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
|
It seems to me that you do not answer the thread's main question. Does the fact that certain pieces of art are immensely dependent on context, background knowledge and the viewers response devalue them compared to others? Isn't this a trend geared towards a situation where the artist required no more skill, since all the merit comes from external factors?
My answer, in brief, is yes. However, I consider such modern art to be simply a different art form, so comparisons are moot.
Also, the way to are dismissive of the middle aged woman's position seems even more pretentious and very narrow-minded to me. :p |
|
|
| Viber |
| quote: | Originally posted by EddieZilker
Here's some REAL art worth paying for! |
"Not only did Teddy Roosevelt give a speech with a bullet in his chest, but what many people don't know is he slaughtered many bigfoot in his time..." |
|
|
| ReclusNdangrmnt |
| I'd buy a print of that Roosevelt one, lol |
|
|
| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
It seems to me that you do not answer the thread's main question. Does the fact that certain pieces of art are immensely dependent on context, background knowledge and the viewers response devalue them compared to others? Isn't this a trend geared towards a situation where the artist required no more skill, since all the merit comes from external factors? |
Do you mean "devalue" in a monetary sense? I don't know a great deal about the world of art collectors, but what I do know is a lot of billionaire Russian oil barons snap up pieces for ridiculous sums just as status symbols. I don't really think the price tag has much to do with artistic worth. And if you mean "devalue" in an artistic sense, I don't really think artistic worth has much to do with the "skill" required either, in much the same way I don't listen to music like technical metal or prog rock just because it places emphasis on virtuosity... Mere manual skill doesn't guarantee it sounds good and I'd rather listen to something extremely simple if it gets my hairs on end. If your idea of artistic worth comes from the sensation "Oooh, that looks difficult" then you're a couple of centuries behind the times. It's not like these artists don't have any skill, after all, they're all properly educated.
| quote: | | Also, the way to are dismissive of the middle aged woman's position seems even more pretentious and very narrow-minded to me. :p |
Why? I wasn't asking her why she wasn't looking at the plaques. I was drunk and waiting for some bars to open so I could carry on. I'm pretty sure that's the least pretentious mindset to possibly carry into an art gallery. I was quite content to let anyone else in that gallery look at the pieces however the they wanted, she chided me as if I were wrong to read up on a piece. Basically, she didn't really know anything about art and yet wanted to say something that sounded correct in the context, something suitably airy and faux-artistic. I've got no problem with people who aren't educated in art going to art galleries, but when you start interjecting into other people's interactions because you have a Reader's Digest idea of what art is about and you want to be seen to be being "arty", then you're pretentious.
You simply seem to use the term to refer to anything you find intellectually threatening, so anyone who takes a more simple view on something can never be pretentious in your eyes, even if the simple view actually contains more pretences. |
|
|
| srussell0018 |
PEDANT JACKASS IDIOT DUMBASS
I win. |
|
|
| Meat187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Do you mean "devalue" in a monetary sense? [...] And if you mean "devalue" in an artistic sense, I don't really think artistic worth has much to do with the "skill" required either, in much the same way I don't listen to music like technical metal or prog rock just because it places emphasis on virtuosity... Mere manual skill doesn't guarantee it sounds good and I'd rather listen to something extremely simple if it gets my hairs on end. If your idea of artistic worth comes from the sensation "Oooh, that looks difficult" then you're a couple of centuries behind the times. It's not like these artists don't have any skill, after all, they're all properly educated.
|
I meant in an artistic sense, obviously. I guess by "these artists" you mean Pollock, and I won't argue about his skill. My concern is that the general trend he is part of leads to an understanding of art where skill is irrelevant. A couple of know art hoaxes have exposed this: Nat Tate, Pavel Jerdanowitch and Pierre Brassau. Sure, manual skill doesn't guarantee quality. But and art understanding where you can be praised despite an utter lack of talent seems quite flawed, wouldn't you say?
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
You simply seem to use the term to refer to anything you find intellectually threatening, |
:stongue: lolwut? Intellectually threatening? Are you TA's new Slychologist? |
|
|
| Halcyon+On+On |
| u threatened. |
|
|
|
|
