What is next?
Posted: August 30th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: The Main Course | 10 Comments »You know this all has got me thinking. A lot. What are the criterion by which we judge what is good and what is bad art? Here is another blog that deals with this issue. Specifically with the work of an photographic memory savant who flies around in helicopters and does photorealist drawings of what he saw afterwords. You may wonder what this has to do with “THE CRITERION” but it does. Trust me. http://blog.absolutearts.com/blogs/archives/00000516.html
Just start at the bottom. The blog posts chronologically which is a little confusing and is not totally spam free.
Here is a video about the guy Stephen Whiltshire, that they are talking about.
Let’s face it, Western cultural thoughts and preformances get filed by building: Meseum, gallery, Craft gallery. But that sames object can be in all, just looked at and exhibited differently.
Here’s a quote from one of the judges of the National Youth Self Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery (to 13 Sept). He also teaches part time at Sydney College of the Arts;
‘ ” ‘We were really won over by works that drew you into the artist’s world. Works with a strong concept behind them are engaging, but ultimately it was the works that seamlessly combine imagery, process and concept into a moving experience that really stood out.” ‘
Stuart Bailey
Can’t something that is made thoughtfully and has some thing to say, be put any where?
If the issue is what type of positive criticism should be offered in crits, Wouldn’t that just come from the comparison of what the maker wants from their work and what the viewers get.
Brooks defines art as ‘ a cultural Gell summarises current definitions of Western art is into the 1. aesthetic 2. interpretive (able to be analysed in terms of content, context and historic precedents) or 3. institutional.( the art world decides). However Brooks suggest something is art if it contains a neme
‘… a [sometimes new] purposeful action [or performance] undertaken in a culturally recognised context.”
Gell, Alfred Vogel’s Net:Traps as Artworks and Art works as Traps, in Alfred Gell The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams Hirsch (ed) (London ; New Brunswick, NJ : Athlone Press, 1999) pp187-188
Donald Brooks The Awful Truth about Art (Ausralia: Artlink Australia, 2008) pp 28
Glass doesn’t have to reflect on any thing, it could be aethetique and a similie. ie this glss bol is like a shell ref: Gell theory no 1. Chihuly is in plenty of art gallery’s, Clare Belfrage in the NGA. Just depends what you want your mode of communication to do when you express your life and times.
‘The deeper the awareness the deeper the message will be and the more profound the essence is. So also, the more subtle the philosophy and the more complex the theoretical aspects behind the art work, that much more spiritual awareness and conscious self-awareness must be respectively present in order to realize that work of art.’
Some one said the artist’ the spiritual pinacle of the cultural triangle. (I think it was Kuhn or Hegel). Sounds like that blogger swallowed this one whole. Surely everone has some thing to say. the cleared you way it with your design, control of medium and focused thought, the easier it is for insitutions and buyers to like it and everyone to enjoy it.
http://blog.absolutearts.com/blogs/archives/00000516.html
Sorry that quote was from the site Admin suggested above.
Thanks for posting Umi! A new voice. Yea!
Umi’s idea that “art” objects can be displayed anywhere seems to be in contradiction to the quote that Umi posted by Stuart Bailey “‘We were really won over by works that drew you into the artist’s world. Works with a strong concept behind them are engaging, but ultimately it was the works that seamlessly combine imagery, process and concept into a moving experience that really stood out.” The work is on display in a museum, the reason it is on display in a museum are the reasons that he sites. What Bailey describes is a distillation process and not the dilution that commonly occurs when things are created for the market place. Since Duchamp when anything can be art, the one thing that artists can offer that is truely unique is their specific relationship to the world and the medium that they work with: a specific precise expression. Work that is created for commercial reasons is created as a compromise between the artist’s vision and the demands of the market place. In the boardroom it is often said that a good compromise is when no one is happy.
Many an experienced artist will tell you of working with galleries that have said things like “Oh these blue paintings are great, but people really want red paintings, could you paint these in red, and in oil paint and 6m x 3m?” The artist is faced with a choice at that point. Dilute their vision or get dropped. If you have financial considerations, like you need to eat, these are tough choices. If not, or if you are a naif, you will walk away from the situation and stay true to your ideas, at least for the time being. After all is it not the artist who has spent the time studying art history, theory, process, vision, application, technique etc. and not the used car seller dressed up in a fancy italian suit that is selling the work? Yes the dealer knows more of the markets demand, but shouldn’t the artist know more about what work is significant in the contemporary world and will take art forward, rather than stagnate it? Many artists who made successful contributions to the history of modern art have been independently wealthy. Why? Because they were not harnessed by the demands of popular culture. I am not saying this is good, it isn’t. The exclusivity that is created by that kind of a reality, has to some extent been counter balanced by the current interest in Art Brut and Outsider Art and other art from this outsider position, but it remains that most of those who end up in our art history books, have a cushion to land on when they jump screaming out the window of their Sydney gallery dealer’s 6th story window.
The work that Bailey juried into the show was specific. It was not created to sell. It was created to be a self-portrait. Ask any gallery director how likely they are to show self-portraits. The answer will be “not very.” Self-portraits don’t sell and like it or not, that is what commercial galleries are about.
Certainly comparing what a maker wants from their work and what the viewer gets is a good place to start in a critique. I believe that topic was brought up by Nic in our last one. Did he say “where do you see your work?” Answering that question will give the critic a place to begin. But my question is this: is it really appropriate to be asking students to give up the goal of aiming for the highest point they can achieve before they have to? Is ANU a trade school or a fine art department? There is a difference. Creating work for the marketplace implies a compromise between the artist’s aesthetic sense and what the artist believes can sell. I am not saying that in a certain course or context this can’t be educational, but I do think it is a dangerous philosophy to have as a departmental theme.
hi Stresstest
i am wary of a logical fallacy established in the opening sentences of your discussion used to ground your argument.
could the competition be held in a museum for a multitude of other reasons? even commercial ones?
also perhaps Bailey’s observation suggests the opposite to your supposition; a good recipe for commercial success, accessibility?
and in general, who said museums do not have commercial interests?
just some thoughts.
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You know this all has got me thinking. A lot…..
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Specifically with the work of an photographic memory savant who flies around in helicopters and does photorealist drawings of […….
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