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The idea of Art and Artistry?

Lark

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The Wiki on "Art" :-

Art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm interested in the idea of art and artistry, there are a number of my favourite philosophers or psychologists who refer to their disciplines, practice and studies as an art form or artistry rather than a science, so far as I can tell this is to do with 1) Acknowledgement of limits or subjectivity, 2) Ascribing an asthetic or appreciative, even romantic dimension contra science.

It makes me think what is art? What does it mean to be an artist is the broadest possible sense? The only person who I think has dealt with this idea in any depth is Oscar Wilde, particularly in The Decay of Lying, Picture of Dorian Gray and peppered all through his essays like Soul of Man Under Socialism.

Wilde suggested that there are both artists in the sense of creative individuals who produce objects of appreciation or enjoyment but there are also artists in a broader sense, such as "artists of life", which from what I can tell are people whose lives are either parables, cautionary tales or achieve notoriety, unsure about this, in short because I detest celebrity culture, although I acknowledge he could be talking about biography instead.

However one thing he does suggest, like some more recent or modern philosophers, that you can not say things are not art, you can say it is good or bad art but not that it is not art. So the idea is because objects are presented or connected with art or artistry they become art. So there is such a thing then as modern art in which displaying a urinal is art because it is the idea of a famous artist to do so.

This is certainly a great talking point, it can prompt some great conversations but I think that honestly when considered in contrast to some of finest paintings I've seen in museams or even great photography a hell of a lot of it is conceit, charlatanism and the emperors new clothes.

You wind up with the idea that any old shit an artist produces is art. Sometimes literally:- Artist's shit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What's your view?
 

Totenkindly

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So there is such a thing then as modern art in which displaying a urinal is art because it is the idea of a famous artist to do so.

Well, it could be seen as a deconstructionist statement on art and a critique on the state of art itself, which is what you're describing as well.

But also, it was exploration of art with a shift away from art as per the artist's intention and pushing art as more a matter of the viewer's interpretation of the work in question.

In other words, where does art occur?
In the will of the artist, or in the mind of the audience?
 

Tiltyred

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I think you can raise anything to an art form. The more intellectual it gets and the farther away from the beautiful it gets, the more I don't like it, personally, but different lids for different pots, etc.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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"What is 'art'?" is a very different question from "What is good 'art'?"

Almost anything can be called art. I find the discussion to be more interesting if you try to find an objective way to classify "good art".
 

nolla

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The whole search for arts limits is getting quite boring, really... There was this one guy who killed his cat and masturbated with the corpse and filmed it and presented it as art. It's just done so many times now, trying to be the one to push the limit furthest, that I don't know if I really consider it to have any value anymore. I do think it is art, though...

I like people who make their art, and not just stamp their name on something un-artsy.
 

Mole

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The Death of Literacy and Telephone Art

I sculpter may shape a lump of marble or they they may listen to the marble and chip away the superfluous.

The literate shape the marble, while those from a spoken or electronic culture listen.

We see now that the literate culture is reaching its apogee.

And it is the apogee of absurdity.

The absurd claim is made that anything is art.

And if anything is art, then nothing is art.

And so we see the total exhaustion of the literate imagination.

And ironically the electronic imagination is invisible to the literate.

"After all", say the literate, "what is telephone art?. I can't see any telephone art at all - it doesn't exist". When of course all we need to do is listen.

For the literate have had all their senses but sight castrated, and so what they can't see, doesn't exist. And not being able to see electronic art, they say nothing is art. The literate artist has been castrated and crucified by print.

But all we need to do is to listen, and to listen to one another.

But learning to listen means passing through a little death - la petite mort - the death of literacy.

And we have yet to notice that the telephone is set up as our new easel and brushes.
 

KDude

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The whole search for arts limits is getting quite boring, really... There was this one guy who killed his cat and masturbated with the corpse and filmed it and presented it as art. It's just done so many times now, trying to be the one to push the limit furthest, that I don't know if I really consider it to have any value anymore. I do think it is art, though...

I like people who make their art, and not just stamp their name on something un-artsy.

It's important to push limits, but that was never exactly the sole function of great artists, I think.. And they never really forced any limits themselves anyways. They latched on to limits already being pushed in culture itself. They rode the zeitgeist, so to speak, and translated these paradigm shifts into art. For example, Picasso and Braque's ideas in cubism kind of coincided with a lot new ideas in the air at the time (especially in scientific circles) with relativity, the 4th dimension, etc.; Arthur Conan Doyle, among a few others at the time, created a new type of hero, who relied on scientific methods; Constanine Stanislavsky was fascinated by the new realm of psychology, and charted out more in depth acting techniques, that didn't just center around diction or gestures; Warhol saw how our current culture could change any mundane commodity or personality into something extravagant, and decided to be funny about it and started saying Campbell's soup cans were art (and in a way we still haven't escaped the world he saw, what with reality TV and shit like that.. everyone has their 15 minutes of fame.. even the guidos on the Jersey Shore). OTOH the guy who jerks off on his cat isn't really pushing any limits.. These artists who do that aren't really going anywhere or pointing where culture is going or capturing some kind of unseen beauty or irony somewhere.. Artists are translators..They need a muse or a real cause..and when it's right, artist and audience are one.. but if an artist thinks they are a catalyst, with all the original ideas in and of themselves, then they usually churn out uninspired shit like that.
 

Lark

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I dont agree with pushing the limits anymore, perhaps I'm getting old but I tend to agree with Nolla, not simply in the field of art either. I tend to feel that limits have been reached, objectively, trying to push them or breech them now looks very different like something else altogether. Like cat masturbator. Its pretty unpleasant.
 

Mole

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Your Own Tone

It's important to push limits...

This is of course the Great Frontier, made famous by the American dream machine, Hollywood, in its oeuvre of Westerns.

But they don't make Westerns any more simply because Westerns are the frontier of American literacy. And literacy is over. The Frontier is over.

And interestingly the last gasp of the Frontier was the Moon shot. But all that happened on the Moon was that we turned round and saw the Whole Earth and soon we had the Whole Earth Catalogue, and most of all we discovered the Environment.

The book is dead and the telephone is alive.

And the internet is the computer connected to the telephone line.

So right now, you are not reading a book, you are connected to me by the telephone line.

But reactive literate that you are, you won't talk with me on the telephone, you are still addicted to the facsimile of electronic print. You can't bear to leave the printed page and cling to electronic text.

You are yet to discover your own voice in your own tone.
 

KDude

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I dont agree with pushing the limits anymore.

You call yourself an ENTJ?? :D jk

Seriously though, saying limits have been reached is bordering on the apocalyptic. Thinking that there are limits in art is equivalent to saying there are limits to any experiences..to the universe itself. We could fast forward 500 years, and I bet it'll be pretty cool.. I hope at least. There's always something new to discover or do, and there will be an artist who captures a side to it that others don't see. Jerking off on cats though is not the way to go about it, I agree.
 

KDude

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This is of course the Great Frontier, made famous by the American dream machine, Hollywood, in its oeuvre of Westerns.

But they don't make Westerns any more simply because Westerns are the frontier of American literacy. And literacy is over. The Frontier is over.

And interestingly the last gasp of the Frontier was the Moon shot. But all that happened on the Moon was that we turned round and saw the Whole Earth and soon we had the Whole Earth Catalogue, and most of all we discovered the Environment.

The book is dead and the telephone is alive.

And the internet is the computer connected to the telephone line.

So right now, you are not reading a book, you are connected to me by the telephone line.

But reactive literate that you are, you won't talk with me on the telephone, you are still addicted to the facsimile of electronic print. You can't bear to leave the printed page and cling to electronic text.

You are yet to discover your own voice in your own tone.

Victor, you wound me. ;) I'm not talking about Americanism.. I don't want to be associated with anything but universal progress. Pushing a limit could very well apply to things you care about too. Julia Gillard and Australian voters have pushed a limit in her own way by being their first female PM. Pioneers, people who move life forward or different ways are everywhere.
 

Lark

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You call yourself an ENTJ?? :D jk

Seriously though, saying limits have been reached is bordering on the apocalyptic. Thinking that there are limits in art is equivalent to saying there are limits to any experiences..to the universe itself. We could fast forward 500 years, and I bet it'll be pretty cool.. I hope at least. There's always something new to discover or do, and there will be an artist who captures a side to it that others don't see. Jerking off on cats though is not the way to go about it, I agree.

I dont understand what this has to do with the ENTJ type but anyway, the rest of your post pretty much exemplifies what my sentiments are, perhaps there are some boundaries to cross in terms of technological advances, including biotech, personally I think the economy and its underpinning ideology is going to seriously obstruct that but normative limits sure have been reached. What sort of transgressive/progressive move is killing a cat and masturbating with it?

Perhaps the next the next transcendence of limits are going to involve people setting or recognising or accepting more limits than before, anythings possible, I just know that with each generation, as part and parcel of the whole rebellious phase of growing up, each generation tries to transcend the norms of its elders but its pretty much exhausted the options by now.
 

KDude

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I'm only kidding about the ENTJ comment, but if you're willing to pull back, latch on to the stupid guy and that poor cat, and draw the conclusion that we may be running out of ideas or inspiration, then it bums me out. You're not looking at all the angles on where art is thriving and doing new things (in a productive way), and being more pessimistic than necessary.. I was under the impression that ENTJ was bolder and less limited in their perspective than I am...but here you are saying we've exhausted options.

Whew.. sorry for the analysis. Like I said, it was just a joke. ;)
 

Lark

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I'm only kidding about the ENTJ comment, but if you're willing to pull back, latch on to the stupid guy and that poor cat, and draw the conclusion that we may be running out of ideas or inspiration, then it bums me out. You're not looking at all the angles on where art is thriving and doing new things (in a productive way), and being more pessimistic than necessary.. I was under the impression that ENTJ was bolder and less limited in their perspective than I am...but here you are saying we've exhausted options.

Whew.. sorry for the analysis. Like I said, it was just a joke. ;)

Yeah, I know, I took it as a joke.

Although I'm interested to know what you mean about perspective now, its important to follow where truth leads but sometimes truth just leads you to the conclusion that even experiment and innovation have to have limits sometimes.

In terms of art like a lot of other things the perpetual attempt to test limits to destruction isnt yielding more benefits than costs any longer, at least that's how I see it for the most part and I'm in favour of a lot of change to the status quo by some standards.
 

Vasilisa

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I like Lynda Barry's discussion of her journey as an artist and writer in her book "What It Is". It is not going to answer your question on what is art, but the concepts are interesting to ponder.
At the center of everything we call 'the arts', and children call 'play', is something which seems somehow alive.

It's not alive in the way you and I are alive, but it's certainly not dead.

It's alive in the way our memory is alive.

Alive in the way the ocean is alive and able to transport us and contain us.

Alive in the way thinking is not, but experiencing is, made of both memory and imagination, this is the thing we mean by 'an image'

The book is a meditation on images; their aliveness and the aliveness that we feel when we experience them.
 

Stanton Moore

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There is a branch of philosophy that deals with these questions. It's called aesthetics. I'm sure Wiki has an entry...
 
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