A Terabyte of Piracy Ain't Art

[n00beffect]

I do not approve of, or acknowledge the Dada movement, or any/most abstract, surrealistic movements.

This tells me all I need to know.

You do realize that almost all of the key artists and pieces of art created after about 1880 were part of abstract movements right?

This includes artists like: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Max Ernst, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Egon Schiele, Max Beckmann, Gustav Klimt, Willem de Kooning, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Salvador Dalí and Vincent Van Gogh.

You can choose not to acknowledge these artists and their works of art but I won't be able to have a discussion about recent works of art with someone who doesn't recognize the forms and ideals of the movements that have occurred in the past 131 years as a legitimate expression within the context of art.

That's why I said "most" not "all". Renoir and the like are of a completely different calibre compared to the person, we're discussing right now. Why? Because they had something called TALENT. Something not so easy to come by, without which an artis would not be able to call himself one. And, again, since this and art are all matters of subjectivity... Argument - pointless. Because you could argue that "this IS talent, it's talent of the MIND!" and some such bollocks, trying to credit the "work" of this poor untalented soul. But, in my opinion, you would be wrong again, because it takes a heck of a lot more than just an idea, to actually clarify the fact that you have talent. Hell, I have tons and tons of ideas for pictures and sculptures, and what not, but since I am neither able to draw, nor to sculpt, these ideas remain in the back of my head, and I have no right to claim that I am an artist since I thought of them. "Oh!" I hear you say "But he DIDN'T keep these ideas in the back of his head! He EXPRESSED them blah blah" -Again, you would be missing the point. He did not "express" them, he "manifested" or "displayed" them, but certainly not expressed them in an artistic manner.

 

[Do4600]

In case you haven't noticed, I have been critiquing their work. Again, their work is sloppy, amateurish, nearly non-existent, incoherent and oftentimes looks like something a monkey could have created.

Actually this is the first thing you've typed that resembles a critique, I reread your posts, so the "again" isn't needed, you haven't been critiquing the art that you've been considering a "sham". The only statement you've made about it is that if it was in a theoretical junkyard you wouldn't remove it from that junkyard. You still haven't matched those descriptive words with any pieces of actual art, so it's still not quite a valid critique.

In my mind, their "work" can not include the ideas behind the piece simply because an idea or a philosophy is in no way art, and it takes no work as such to attach an idea or concept to a common utilitarian object.
To take my backyard wall analogy a step further, STOP signs would have to be considered art by your definition simply because they embody the idea that a person who sees them must stop in an orderly fashion. Doesn't that sound the slightest bit ridiculous to you?

Not at all, a stop sign hanging on the wall of an art gallery would confront you to re-examine an object that with all likely hood you've had knowledge of since you were a toddler. I'd also like to say that the context of where you exhibit anything becomes part of the overall impression of what you are exhibiting. For example, if a stop sign is on a post it becomes an authority figure, if it's hanging on somebodies wall, like a trophy, it becomes an anti-authority figure, just an example to illustrate that objects don't carry the same meaning from one venue to another. This is also one of the things that goes into the consideration of what is "good" art.

There's nothing about pieces of modern art I inherently dislike for the most part. However, I do dislike the culture surrounding modern art. The problem with modern art as it stands is that most modern artists are in fact wannabe philosophers and political, cultural and social commentators.

Art has always shown itself to be a reaction to philosophies, politics and both cultural and social standards. Do you think it's a coincidence that most major changes in art movements within the western world have followed the most major philosophical and social works? And that the subject matter of these artistic movements is always relevant to the philosophical, political or social change that preceded it?

Ideas and concepts have no real place in art(most certainly not as the basis for a work of art)

I have no descriptive power to communicate to you how categorically wrong that statement is, the words don't exist.

All I'm asking you to do is ignore everything everyone has told you about what makes something art and think for yourself.

I am thinking for myself thank you, those thoughts are the product of many years of private and public study into the field of visual art, if that for some reason makes me unqualified to demonstrate the reasons your assumptions about art are incorrect then the field of visual art is truly in peril if a layman can poke holes in 6000 years of art and demonstrate that all art going back into the stone age is devoid of thought, concept and meaningful connotation.

 

[Phuctifyno]

Something that takes time, skill, and effort.

How much of each? Is an incredibly detailed caricature that takes a minute art? Or a rubbish drawing that took an hour? Is it considered greater or lesser art if it took hours of welding, sawing, sanding and chisseling, or if it was made with a simple brush and watercolour paint on a piece of paper? How can you quantify it? If I sing acapella, is it any less of a song than if I had a band accompany?

When I was a kid, my class went on a school trip to an art gallery (Centre Pompidou, Paris). I was looking at a picture that consisted of an entirely white canvas approx. A3 in size. All it had on it was three black dots, in a rough line starting at the centre and heading towards the upper left corner. It looked to me like someone had flicked a cartridge pen and those three small blots were the result of the ink flying from the nib.

That picture had a price tag of 15000 francs (£1,500 at the time) and I couldn't for the life of me understand why. I asked my teacher why it might be, that something which took so little skill to create could be so valued. He told me it wasn't what we saw or how hard it was to create but the thinking of the artist behind it, what it represented and/or the thoughts/feelings it evoked in the viewer that mattered.

It took me years before I understood what he'd been trying to tell me. I discovered in my early 20s that I loved going to galleries where before I would have never considered it. I'm not an artist but I gained the understanding to look and try to see what an artist is attempting.

I'm not by any means saying this is a magnificent showpiece or in the same category as Michaelangelo's amazing sculptures or Monet's oil paintings. But that black box does showcase an idea. He's got us talking about it on this forum, discussing its merits, discussing the issue of piracy, discussing how a small box can hold a $5mill value. While it may have been easy to create and looks a little plain and boring (though I suspect that's intentional), he's the first to present this idea in that way, and he has succeeded. That's why it's art.

Ideas and feelings are not only cheap, they're free - and common. To look at a piece that someone may have poured blood, sweat and tears into and think "this is all about me and how I feel about it" devalues the artist's work. For an artist to construct a piece to push a personal agenda or play with ideas is fantastic, the more passion the better, but not necessary. What makes art worth anybody's time is the honing of craft that the artist applies to the act of expression itself, not what's being expressed. I like to keep bringing up Hitchcock in this regard. Masterful artist - gave less than two shits about his films' content.

So let's say I run through a crowded street, wearing only milk, punching kids while singing a song to the tune of "the sound of music", but with the words swapped out with a new strange alien language I make up as I go along. I'm just expressing my unique, profound, snowflake ideas, and emotionally affecting all the mothers of the kids I punch (and old people offended by my milky thighs), and I'm doing something totally original and unthought of by anybody on earth. Some asshole will say "I could do that", and I'll retort "But you didn't." I'm an artist. Thanks. Pay me lots please.

It must be understood that a large portion of people who spend ridiculous amounts of money on art don't understand art, they understand spending ridiculous amounts of money and how awesome it makes them look. Some artists know this and try to exploit it too. A dollar value doesn't define the quality of art. Also, the amount of time I mentioned in my statement is not how long it takes to create a single piece, but the cumulative amount that the artist has dedicated to his or her craft. It isn't art because we're talking about it either. I could point to my previous paragraph, but I'll also mention that we might talk a lot about a murderer, a war, or a climate change. Not art. Just news.

These things can't be quantified, and the quality of a piece isn't a deciding factor either. I think that might scare some people because it takes power away from them. It isn't up to you, or me, or anybody else, or even the artist to "deem" something art. It's attained by what's put into it, and you just know it when you see it: A piece of art is a piece of work.

Or you don't know it when you see it and blow 15000 francs on canvas someone convulsed near while holding a painbrush.



*appendix - "this is all about me and how I feel about it" devalues the artist's work. - unless it's the artist's intention for the audience to apply their own perpective, as is the case in much of gaming.

 

[ILikeEggs]

For example, if a stop sign is on a post it becomes an authority figure, if it's hanging on somebodies wall, like a trophy, it becomes an anti-authority figure, just an example to illustrate that objects don't carry the same meaning from one venue to another.

Like I've said and other people have said, something that illustrates an abstract idea that can be explained without the need for a physical object is not art. Apparently, we're arguing semantics here and you seem to think that the definition of the word "idea" or "statement" is equivalent to the definition of the word "art".

Art has always shown itself to be a reaction to philosophies, politics and both cultural and social standards.

To an extent, you are correct. But only to the extent that culture, tradition and philosophy have catalysed art as opposed to your claim that these movements have required visual artists to become political and social commentators.
An artist depicting a culture or tradition the way he/she sees it, or just plain depicting it does not necessarily make the artist a socio-political commentator or a philosopher. At most, it makes the artist an observer.
Like I said earlier, while intellectualism has no place as the basis of visual art, I was not suggesting that a piece which also happens to have intellectual symbolism becomes something that is not art on account of carrying ideas and concepts.

I am thinking for myself thank you, those thoughts are the product of many years of private and public study into the field of visual art, if that for some reason makes me unqualified to demonstrate the reasons your assumptions about art are incorrect then the field of visual art is truly in peril if a layman can poke holes in 6000 years of art and demonstrate that all art going back into the stone age is devoid of thought, concept and meaningful connotation.

Clearly I'm ignorant, then. But please, don't hesitate to show me the deeper intellectual significance and ideals behind the Venus of Willendorf, cave paintings, Egyptian art, architecture, sculpture, Greek, Roman, Renaissance sculptures, realist paintings and sculptures. Well, if such deeper significance inherently exists in these works. I'd also love to see you explain how the Venus of Willendorf was deeply intellectually significant, as opposed to artists of the time simply depicting beauty as they saw it.

Once you've accomplished that, I'd like to know how divorcing the aesthetics from the "ideologies and concepts" behind these works makes it impossible to immediately appreciate and enjoy them on the basis of their aesthetics alone.

To me, it seems you're arguing that art is contrived, inaccessible to some and needs not be aesthetically pleasing. But then on the other hand, you have centuries upon centuries of works of art which can be appreciated till today, with absolutely no explanation or intellectual weight attached to them.

By the way, up until two hundred or so years ago, the definition of art was quite straightforward. It was generally classified as a skill or craft depending on whether its use was practical, purely aesthetic, or both.
The irony is that the so-called "artists" of the last century have been the ones to go poking holes in a 6000-year old definition of art.

So let's say I run through a crowded street, wearing only milk, punching kids while singing a song to the tune of "the sound of music", but with the words swapped out with a new strange alien language I make up as I go along. I'm just expressing my unique, profound, snowflake ideas, and emotionally affecting all the mothers of the kids I punch (and old people offended by my milky thighs), and I'm doing something totally original and unthought of by anybody on earth. Some asshole will say "I could do that", and I'll retort "But you didn't." I'm an artist. Thanks. Pay me lots please.

Hah. Take that, performance art!

 

[Rawne1980]

I was looking at my half eaten Kebab earlier and thought to myself "if I stuck this in a gallery, some muppet would class it as art".

They would take a look at it and add some deep meaning to what they think it represented to me as the "artist".

When the closest to deep and meaningful I got was thinking to myself "I really fancy a Kebab" and then "some tool would probably pay me a few hundred quid if I stuck this Kebab in a gallery".

I remember when people classed artists as talented. Now you just need a messy bedroom, half a cow or a fucking hard drive and voila ..... you are an artist.

Either that or people that think this is "art" are easily pleased.