Do4600 said:
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".
Do4600 said:
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.
Do4600 said:
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.
Phuctifyno said:
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!