What is art?

[e_dog]

The question 'what is art?' is perhaps the most prominent of aesthetic questions. but it does not arise in a vaccuum. here is a typical social context for the question to arise, in the modern age. two friend are in a museum, looking at an abtract painting or an installation using 'found' objects as medium, and one of them says ; is this even an artwork?" and the other maybe replies "of course" and they enter into a discussion about "What is art?" or some controversial artwork will be presented and cause a commotion amongst conservatives and traditionalists and it will be featured on the t.v. news in with some silly catchphrase like "is the this art or obscenity?" (or (even worse) "Is this politics or entertainment?" where they confuse the function of film as mere entertainment rather than art).
Thus, the philosophical question of the nature and meaning of art is not some question about the Form of Beauty in a Platonic heaven, but a question that arises in practical terms in the process of people deciding how to carry on the business of culture. (I was using the word business in a relaxed sense, like the "business of life" but it could be taken in its economic sense and connect to the idea of art as a business enterprise, which sometimes it is.)

This assumes that the question is not meaningless nor just banter. So, granted that What is art? is a meaningful question, does this mean that it has an answer? I am doubtful, or at least I doubt that it has one answer. Most likely, the answers people give will be guided, subconsciously, by their desires to censor or otherwise supress forms of expression they dislike. Conversely, those favoring an expansive conception of art are apt to conceive of their views about the world as relatively enlightneded and part of a project of mind-expansion. the problem is that this may be a delusion and it may be easily co-opted by marketing strategies and commercialism: more artworks, more products to sell, demand to crerate; better forms of expression, translates into better form of marketing, manipulating the minds of the masses of society.

[Glorious Amok]

Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments. An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature.

-- Marcel Proust

[Doreen Peri]

Art is man's method of interpreting life. It is his expression of how he views the world, how he feels about his place in it and his relationship to his own human condition. A successful piece of art, no matter the genre, moves the audience emotionally and can make them examine life on various levels.

Nah... not really. Just kidding.

It's just entertainment... attractive pictures, music that makes you sigh or dance, film or theater that makes you laugh or cry.

Something like that.

Or the first defnition.

Or neither.

[Doreen Peri]

But basically... really... what I really think it is is...

Art is the vehicle that enables you to look through another person's eyes, hear through another person's ears, and think through another person's mind.

Maybe that's it.

It's about connection.

[jimboloco]

pop culture takes art, commercialises it, yes, i have a john lennon self-portrait on my t-shirt, one of my faves.

marketing is a skill that takes art into the public sphere,

even the art center has its marketing ambition

ad hoc art, outsider art, is not necesarily,
superior to "successful" art,


nor is it inferior.

why i say my drawings are not fine art.

[e_dog]

art is a sophisticated substitute
for crying in public

poetry
for lying in public

acting
for dying in public

[jimboloco]

i was crying when i drew this, drunk as well, about ten years ago, did the phlagg last week, now it is in the st pete art center's members' show this summer, "symbols and metaphors" to be opened next week.

you can see a couple of teardrop washes, folks, find the hidden tears

[e_dog]

the relation of literary and cultural history to socio-political history is analogous to the relation of funeral music to the funeral itself. poetry is like the kind words of condolence to the relatives of the deceased.


-- reposted fragment from thread "History" in the Culture forum.

[jimboloco]

That comparison does not hold up absolutely.

Have you never seen a street dirge in New Orleans?

May the condor-vultures pick clean your decayed flesh and your ground up bones made into paste for their further nourishment.

I certainly want a combination street-dirge-tibetan bardo wake up, man.

We need creative funereal mortician preists.

As for history and art, well the Renaissance in art was not reflected by an age of enlightenment, true, the bell towers rank with persecutions, the women artists were raped and forgotten, yes. But to know the history in all it's gory detail is to be selective, thorough, and honest.

Words of condolence and lamentations in advance.

New from Haymarket Books
http://haymarketbooks.org/

SOLDIERS IN REVOLT
GI Resistance During the Vietnam War
by David Cortright, with a new introduction by Howard Zinn


Don't you seperate my art from my part in history.
lesson number 101.

with beard, just forward of the white stripe, august '72.

[gypsyjoker]

Conversely, those favoring an expansive conception of art are apt to conceive of their views about the world as relatively enlightneded and part of a project of mind-expansion. the problem is that this may be a delusion and it may be easily co-opted by marketing strategies and commercialism: more artworks, more products to sell, demand to crerate; better forms of expression, translates into better form of marketing, manipulating the minds of the masses of society.

a strong ending Herr Professor. I know you will probably smirk at this one, but I see art as a reality check, because I am very much born to follow, susceptible to group think. Have you read Marcuse, maybe his last book kind of a reversal of his postion on Marxist art in soviet union, I think it was called towards a new asthetic.??

i like that bit about tears in public

btw were you drunk when you wrote that, more typos then me?
i didn't think it possible

[jimboloco]

http://www.rogallery.com/_RG-Images/Joh ... s-Flag.jpg

wave thet phlagg
wave thet orange, black, and green.....
moratorium time

[Artguy]

An intellectual fart.....

[jimboloco]

shit man you been doing some deep meditations
snap of fingers
wake up

[palephx]

What is it they say about a million monkeys? They might reproduce the works of Shakespeare, but then the words would have no meaning, and they would never provoke thought.

I used to do graphic design work. Image correction and pre-press type stuff. When PhotoShop became the industry standard, actual photographers and artists had a new tool. Then I would always see these commercials for so-called art colleges, which claimed you could learn this program in a few weeks, implying that your output would somehow be equal to that of a professional.

Ads like this always reminded me of those matchbook covers, which invited you to draw "Zippy the Turtle," or whatever. Then you'd send away for some correspondence school mumbo jumbo and suddenly you're an artist. You can give a person a violin, or a paintbrush, or a pen, and ten years, and there's no guarantee he'll become an artist.

Art is a product of discipline and passion; a statement, sound, image, or action which promotes thought. People who believe in "art for art's sake" are working with either children or chimpanzees. Not everyone can make art. Likewise, not everyone can appreciate all art that is made.

If you call yourself an artist, but you've never shown your work, then you're like a writer who's never been published or a clergyman who's never had sex. Such post hoc concerns don't change what you are, but they do improve your ability to discuss other people's art, writing, or sex.

The arts are plagued by dilletantes and posers. At minimum, these people can be tolerated because they're expressing themselves. As a culture, as consumers of beauty, we prefer that the people who produce things be experienced, talented, and somewhat dedicated.

When PhotoShop "leveled the playing field," it meant that any shmuck with a computer and a few hundred bucks could learn what the little buttons did. Then once everyone was equal in their technical knowledge, it returned to the artists to lead the industry.

[gypsyjoker]

I don't know what art is, discussions of art for me are like intellectual farts. I can't remember the artist who said, "I can not paint unless I feel like I am going to strangel someone. I wish I knew what it is to be an artist. Just a consumer myself. Maybe the first art that I first looked at with joy and sorrow were the Decadent artists of the Weimar Republic. No idea why. Just a feeling of the joy of being alive in such a doomed era.

I think art is power, seems as every revolution has had its artists. I still don't get Marcuse, he seemed so important at the time.