Another Question About Art: When is Art Created?

[RJ 17]

Good evening, Escapists.

Well I had been hoping my previous topic would have gotten a few more responses, oh well. I've got another question about art, this time with a hypothetical situation!

Suppose an artist is working on a painting and he/she accidentally bumps a can of paint with his/her elbow, spilling it across the desk. Looking down at the mess, something about the way the paint has spread across the desk with the various paintbrushes and jars and cans just strikes the artist, so he/she takes a picture of it.

In the above scenario, when was "art" officially created? When the artist's elbow bumped the paint can completely by accident, causing the paint to spill? Or when the artist saw something inspiring in the spill and took a picture of it?

 

[madwarper]

I'm not sure what you're trying to ask... If you're asking about when an artist can walk away from a piece of their work and call it finished, then it's whenever they walk away from their piece of work and calls it finished.

It's their work, and only they get to decide when it's complete, assuming they ever call it completed.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

The only definition of art that allows me sanity is to say that art is art when the artists says it is art.

I remember once going to an art mueseum named MONA in the city of Hobart with my friend who did art history. There was a machine there that through chemical processes like the stomach turned food to shit, it didnt smell great and I couldnt understand how anyone could call such a machine artisitic. My friend explained to me that this was a type of art that acts as a counter to any attempts to define art as just being traditional things like landscapes or pictures of people or whatever. It was Art in defiance of any attempt to define art.

 

[Vault101]

I remember once going to an art mueseum named MONA in the city of Hobart with my friend who did art history. There was a machine there that through chemical processes like the stomach turned food to shit, it didnt smell great and I couldnt understand how anyone could call such a machine artisitic. My friend explained to me that this was a type of art that acts as a counter to any attempts to define art as just being traditional things like landscapes or pictures of people or whatever. It was Art in defiance of any attempt to define art.

"Anti-art" is that the correct term?

its funny that kind of thing there, along with satements like "my kid could do that!" are oooooollllddd and have been happening with the advent of modernism (then post-modernism) which came hand in hand with the invention of photography [footnote/]my art history..particually the modern period Is shaky at best[/footnote]

I mean I belive the DaDa-ist movement came around after 1914 where someone stuck a urinal on a wall in a museum, da da was I'm pretty sure the first anti-art movement

I guess my point Is while "its so simple/if that's art can't ANTHING be art" are valid questions they aren't exactly new (and kind of beyond trite at this point)

personally while I think maybe when it comes to "high brow" art people should not try to over think it and just see it for what it is...personally while I think its unfair to dismiss things just because they are "weird" I find analysing our mainstream art...the products designed for a mass mainstream audience far more interesting because it seems so much relevant to us as a whole, high brow art seems so insular

as for the "shit machine" I think its absolutely fascinating to see a biological function taken "out" of the body and performed mechanically for all to see....I don't know I actually find it interesting weather or not its "art"

 

[Musette]

I mean I belive the DaDa-ist movement came around after 1914 where someone stuck a urinal on a wall in a museum, da da was I'm pretty sure the first anti-art movement

I guess my point Is while "its so simple/if that's art can't ANTHING be art" are valid questions they aren't exactly new (and kind of beyond trite at this point)

personally while I think maybe when it comes to "high brow" art people should not try to over think it and just see it for what it is...personally while I think its unfair to dismiss things just because they are "weird" I find analysing our mainstream art...the products designed for a mass mainstream audience far more interesting because it seems so much relevant to us as a whole, high brow art seems so insular

as for the "shit machine" I think its absolutely fascinating to see a biological function taken "out" of the body and performed mechanically for all to see....I don't know I actually find it interesting weather or not its "art"

If you don't mind me wagering a guess, are you referring to Duchamp's Fountain?

Spoiler: Spoilered because I don't know how to reduce the image size

My last music history course at the very least mentioned that this art exists, but I've never taken an art history class, so I don't know much more than the name and the elements of the movement that affected the music (and my memory of that is a tad shakey).

I can definitely see your perspective about "high brow" art versus "mainstream/popular" art, since the extremes of both camps can get pretty annoying. I hate when people use "this isn't art" as a way to dismiss something experimental, whether I like said artwork or not. (For example, I will probably walk out of any concert featuring the piece "Workers Union" by Louis Andriessen, but I won't deny that it is music.) On the other hand, I don't like when people who like experimental art totally dismiss something that is more accessible/mainstream. My favorite composer uses a fusion of Baroque, Jazz, and Brazilian musical styles, and whenever I perform one of his works, I almost always hear at least one or two people singing the melodies to themselves afterwards. It creates a sense of audience engagement that is difficult to pull off with stranger works. Experimental/modern music is an important niche, but far from the only one that matters.

For some reason, that "shit machine" reminds me of an art piece I saw a while back. It was an identical pair of pots used to brew Cuban coffee (forgive me for not knowing the technical terms), but one was made with oil-based materials and I forget what exactly the other was made of. By the time I saw it, the oil-based one was already showing signs of deterioration, which was an intentional move by the artist. It was supposedly a political message about his country's reliance on oil to keep its economy running versus more stable/permanent resources. (I'm totally botching the message of it, but that piece was one of the few political works that's genuinely interested me.)

There is this interesting Ted Talk by Mark Applebaum about creativity in music, and the main takeaway of the talk is that the question of "is this music?" was not as important to him as "is this interesting?" I think the latter question makes for more engaging discussion because it can apply to anything that fits within our traditionally conceptions of art as well as what's outside of it. (Asking what makes a Beethoven piece interesting explains far more about the piece than what makes it music, and I'd argue the same for the works of composers like John Cage as well.)

(Yeah, I'm not very educated in topics that don't relate to music. Please forgive my wall of text/ramblings >> )

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Mostly hinges on context. If I'm sleeping butt-naked on a Lazy Susan in the middle of an art gallery, that's art. Back home, it's just tacky and a little disgusting.

 

[Vault101]

If you don't mind me wagering a guess, are you referring to Duchamp's Fountain?

Spoiler: Spoilered because I don't know how to reduce the image size

yes! that's the one


[quote/]I can definitely see your perspective about "high brow" art versus "mainstream/popular" art, since the extremes of both camps can get pretty annoying.

I hate when people use "this isn't art" as a way to dismiss something experimental, whether I like said artwork or not. (For example, I will probably walk out of any concert featuring the piece "Workers Union" by Louis Andriessen, but I won't deny that it is music.) On the other hand, I don't like when people who like experimental art totally dismiss something that is more accessible/mainstream. [/quote]

so in other words reverse snobbery is just as bad as actual snobbery? yeah I see it all the time in books too

you've got the lit-fic crowd bashing "genre fiction" and the genre fiction crowd bashing lit fic in return, mostly out of defensives . I think both attitudes suck

I do have my preferences and I think I tend to veer on the side of snobbery now and again (only because I think its better to be motivated by a perceived level quality than a reaction/defence mechanism also since the latter is tainted by a bit of anti-intellectualism [footnote/]and yeah I won't deny this has its own issues...like seeking validation for being into "high brow" stuff[/footnote]) I think it pays to have an open mind to most things, don't just limit yourself to one "thing" weather in music/art/movies/whatever

whenever people say "its not x" theyre not really interested in looking into weather or not something is x or the nature of x, they just want validation for their opinions so they claim it "isn't x" and yeah I agree in that if something is interesting it shouldn't matter, rap I think in its time was a very unconventional music style that clearly polarized a lot of people

 

[Musette]

so in other words reverse snobbery is just as bad as actual snobbery? yeah I see it all the time in books too

you've got the lit-fic crowd bashing "genre fiction" and the genre fiction crowd bashing lit fic in return, mostly out of defensives . I think both attitudes suck

Yeah, either way, dismissing art that you don't like is an act of poor taste.

I've seen that attitude in lit-fix crowds myself actually, even if it was mostly indirectly. My twin's about to finish her degree in creative writing, and most of her professors loved to flat out treat genre fiction as inferior/low-brow writing. Still, just people some people think literary fiction is the end-all-be-all of writing doesn't mean that the exact opposite is true. I get the feeling that these types of attitudes persist in just about every art form.

I do have my preferences and I think I tend to veer on the side of snobbery now and again (only because I think its better to be motivated by a perceived level quality than a reaction/defence mechanism also since the latter is tainted by a bit of anti-intellectualism [footnote/]and yeah I won't deny this has its own issues...like seeking validation for being into "high brow" stuff[/footnote]) I think it pays to have an open mind to most things, don't just limit yourself to one "thing" weather in music/art/movies/whatever

I think the key words in this conversation are "open mind," because dismissing a type of art in these scenarios is more of a sign of closed-mindedness, whether you're dismissing the avant garde or popular genre. When compared to my peers, I suppose I sit closer to the music snob extreme partly out of necessity. (I've known and worked with a lot of composers, and a lot of them like percussionists, so they've slowly desensitized me to atonal/otherwise bizarre works by recruiting me to play in them.) It's also easy to get polarized when people openly state extreme statements, especially when those statements are uniformed as well as dismissive. (ie: when someone says "a toddler could have done that" even though the piece is carefully constructed, with every word/brush stroke/note placed in their exact spots for a specific purpose, often inviting complex analysis of their respective techniques.)

whenever people say "its not x" theyre not really interested in looking into weather or not something is x or the nature of x, they just want validation for their opinions so they claim it "isn't x" and yeah I agree in that if something is interesting it shouldn't matter, rap I think in its time was a very unconventional music style that clearly polarized a lot of people

Agreed, it's more often used as a form of dismissal than a platform to engage deeper thought. I still hear people try to dismiss rap as "not music" on occasion, and I think that had to do with the de-emphasis on pitch in favor of text. Still, it's kinda fascinating to see what gets declared as "not art" as a genre/style steps into previously unconventional territory.

(My other fascination is ethnomusicology, and it's amazing to see just how strongly people react to music from cultures that do not share Western concepts of harmony. In fact, I think most of "it's not music" accusations come from departing from our conventional tonal system, whatever form it takes.)

 

[chikusho]

Honestly, I think art is created when it's perceived, and at that moment it becomes what it means to that person.
If someone has an intense emotional experience from seeing a spilled bucket of blue paint, that experience won't go away just because it wasn't intentional.

 

[Gorrath]

Good evening, Escapists.

Well I had been hoping my previous topic would have gotten a few more responses, oh well. I've got another question about art, this time with a hypothetical situation!

Suppose an artist is working on a painting and he/she accidentally bumps a can of paint with his/her elbow, spilling it across the desk. Looking down at the mess, something about the way the paint has spread across the desk with the various paintbrushes and jars and cars just strikes the artist, so he/she takes a picture of it.

In the above scenario, when was "art" officially created? When the artist's elbow bumped the paint can completely by accident, causing the paint to spill? Or when the artist saw something inspiring in the spill and took a picture of it?

Here's a couple of thoughts I hope you find interesting or worthwhile.

Art as creation: In this case, art is simply the matter of the creation of a piece with the intent for the piece to convey a message or emotional content. In this instance, art is defined by the process of creation and purpose. THis definition of art focuses on the artist with no express need for an audience.

Art as the interplay of creator and audience: In this line of thought, the process of "art" is not completed until the audience has had time to assess the piece. The audience here could be anyone, even just the artist themselves.

Found art: This is akin to what you mention above, where an artist accidentally knocks over a paint can and creates art without expressly attempting to do so. Under this definition of art, one might find art anywhere, from spilled paint to just how some leaves happen to blow around in a park. In this definition, there is no express need for an artist, just an audience.

Of the three, I find the second the most compelling. To me, art is properly defined as not just the creation of something but the appreciation and emotional content that comes with experiencing it. The first and last definitions lack critical components for me, as either becomes too broad and makes the term "art" totally useless.

 

[Gorrath]

Honestly, I think art is created when it's perceived, and at that moment it becomes what it means to that person.
If someone has an intense emotional experience from seeing a spilled bucket of blue paint, that experience won't go away just because it wasn't intentional.

I agree with you that art is not art until it is perceived, but do you not find that found art broadens the definition of art until it is useless? Essentially, found art means that any and every object can be art just by someone having an emotional reaction to it, which pretty much means everything is art. If art is everything, then art is nothing.

 

[Dagda Mor]

I mean I belive the DaDa-ist movement came around after 1914 where someone stuck a urinal on a wall in a museum, da da was I'm pretty sure the first anti-art movement

You're referring to Richard Mutt's (actually Marcel Duchamp's) Fountain, which was submitted in 1917 and actually predated DaDa. It's the most influential artwork of the 20th century, because it was more or less the first thing to straight-up defy the idea of defining art--although other artists and Duchamp himself had been pushing the boundaries for years before this, no one had really tried to sincerely celebrate something as insulting as a urinal in an art gallery.

 

[chikusho]

Honestly, I think art is created when it's perceived, and at that moment it becomes what it means to that person.
If someone has an intense emotional experience from seeing a spilled bucket of blue paint, that experience won't go away just because it wasn't intentional.

I agree with you that art is not art until it is perceived, but do you not find that found art broadens the definition of art until it is useless? Essentially, found art means that any and every object can be art just by someone having an emotional reaction to it, which pretty much means everything is art. If art is everything, then art is nothing.

I don't agree that if art is everything then art is nothing. But rather, that the perception of something as art creates it. The response to it is real, so therefore it must also be real, in a way. Different things may be art to different people, so that naturally mean that different things are also not art to different people. And there's the distinction, firmly in your own head. Might be a bit solipsistic, but I personally find it to be true.

So, I see it like this.. It's possible for you to create art without being an artist, and it's also possible for you to be an artist, and not create art. A skilled artists creates art that is largely successful in producing the intended response, while an unskilled artist creates art that has the opposite of the intended response, or simply no response (in which case it's art only to the artist him or herself).

 

[omega 616]

In your example, depending on how good the picture was, then or never.

To me (and what the fuck do I know?) art is a deliberate, skilled thing. Modern "art" isn't art to me, it's crap ... watching a video of David Beckham sleeping, isn't art ... it's a guy taking a nap. I was went around joking about how these days you could put a white pixel sized dot on a black piece of paper and call it something pseudo deep like "life" ... I then found that piece of art, hung up in an exhibition ... Next to a painting, which was vertically differently colored lines about 2 inches apart on white paper. This isn't art, I can do this shit!

Art is those old portraits, like that famous one of god and Adam nearly touching fingers.

Spoiler: or this

Just look at that detail! It's beautiful!

Spoiler: compare this to the previous

Just what the fuck? I can balance an old bike wheel on a stool!

One is a person spending hundreds, maybe thousands of hours painstakingly creating a scene and the other person got an old bike wheel, painted it black, got an old stool, painted it white and stuck one on top of the other ... which is what, 30 minutes work?

Like I said, what the fuck do I know ... I just think those two pieces are in totally different leagues.

Especially when you get to shit like an art critic saying a 5 year olds scribbles are worth more than 5P or a dog running randomly round paper with paint on it's paws expresses the dogs emotion.

 

[Gorrath]

Honestly, I think art is created when it's perceived, and at that moment it becomes what it means to that person.
If someone has an intense emotional experience from seeing a spilled bucket of blue paint, that experience won't go away just because it wasn't intentional.

I agree with you that art is not art until it is perceived, but do you not find that found art broadens the definition of art until it is useless? Essentially, found art means that any and every object can be art just by someone having an emotional reaction to it, which pretty much means everything is art. If art is everything, then art is nothing.

I don't agree that if art is everything then art is nothing. But rather, that the perception of something as art creates it. The response to it is real, so therefore it must also be real, in a way. Different things may be art to different people, so that naturally mean that different things are also not art to different people. And there's the distinction, firmly in your own head. Might be a bit solipsistic, but I personally find it to be true.

So, I see it like this.. It's possible for you to create art without being an artist, and it's also possible for you to be an artist, and not create art. A skilled artists creates art that is largely successful in producing the intended response, while an unskilled artist creates art that has the opposite of the intended response, or simply no response (in which case it's art only to the artist him or herself).

When I say, "If art is everything, art is nothing," i mean to imply that any definition of art so broad as to encompass every conceivable object is inherently meaningless. If art is merely defined as "An experience with an object that causes emotional response." then art is everything any human has ever interacted with. I find this definition to be fairly useless.

I find it hard to digest the notion that you can have an artist who does not create art because I don't know if I follow your meaning. An artist is defined as someone who creates art, so you couldn't have an artist who doesn't, at some point, create art. Conversely, one cannot be a creator of art and not be an artist, since they are an artist by definition. We could argue they are not an artist by trade, surely, but they are an artist by virtue of the definition. I don't mean to argue mere semantics though, so lets go further.

You mention that someone might create art with the intent to convey one meaning or emotional response and end up creating something that invokes an opposite response. I would argue that this merely goes to the subjective nature of the audience and the skill of the artist. Even bad art is still art after all, and any form of media can convey different ideas/emotions to different people. This subjectivity isn't what defines something as art or not art, but simply speaks to its quality.

Also, you mention that something might only be art to the artist themselves, which is fine really. The audience of a piece might only ever be the artist. If I painted a masterpiece, appreciated my creation and promptly burned it so that no one else would ever see it, the piece would still have been art.

 

[Gorrath]

In your example, depending on how good the picture was, then or never.

To me (and what the fuck do I know?) art is a deliberate, skilled thing. Modern "art" isn't art to me, it's crap ... watching a video of David Beckham sleeping, isn't art ... it's a guy taking a nap. I was went around joking about how these days you could put a white pixel sized dot on a black piece of paper and call it something pseudo deep like "life" ... I then found that piece of art, hung up in an exhibition ... Next to a painting, which was vertically differently colored lines about 2 inches apart on white paper. This isn't art, I can do this shit!

Art is those old portraits, like that famous one of god and Adam nearly touching fingers.

Spoiler: or this

Just look at that detail! It's beautiful!

Spoiler: compare this to the previous

Just what the fuck? I can balance an old bike wheel on a stool!

One is a person spending hundreds, maybe thousands of hours painstakingly creating a scene and the other person got an old bike wheel, painted it black, got an old stool, painted it white and stuck one on top of the other ... which is what, 30 minutes work?

Like I said, what the fuck do I know ... I just think those two pieces are in totally different leagues.

Especially when you get to shit like an art critic saying a 5 year olds scribbles are worth more than 5P or a dog running randomly round paper with paint on it's paws expresses the dogs emotion.

While I agree with you that the two pieces are leagues apart, I wouldn't say the second is "not art, it's crap." I'd say it is art, it's just crap art. Much in the same vein that I'd say most fanfiction is literature, it's just really shitty literature. I think we should be careful about defining art based on our perception of the quality of the work. Quality in art tends to rely on a level of subjectivity that we'd quickly be in a mess trying to figure out what counts or not and why.

 

[Story]

The picture became art when the artist, or a particular viewer (usually someone with a background in some type of visual literacy) considers it art.
Now you didn't mention this, but to clarify, do you mean the paint on canvas is art? Or are you referring to the picture taken as art? Because those are two very different situations.
The paint on the canvas itself might harken back to Abstract Expressionism particularity gestural abstraction or action painting. I.E Pollock or Kilne

The picture of the painting taken on the phone would most likely not be considered art, but again it depends on the viewer.

 

[Story]

In your example, depending on how good the picture was, then or never.

To me (and what the fuck do I know?) art is a deliberate, skilled thing. Modern "art" isn't art to me, it's crap ... watching a video of David Beckham sleeping, isn't art ... it's a guy taking a nap. I was went around joking about how these days you could put a white pixel sized dot on a black piece of paper and call it something pseudo deep like "life" ... I then found that piece of art, hung up in an exhibition ... Next to a painting, which was vertically differently colored lines about 2 inches apart on white paper. This isn't art, I can do this shit!

Art is those old portraits, like that famous one of god and Adam nearly touching fingers.

Spoiler: or this

Just look at that detail! It's beautiful!

Spoiler: compare this to the previous

Just what the fuck? I can balance an old bike wheel on a stool!

One is a person spending hundreds, maybe thousands of hours painstakingly creating a scene and the other person got an old bike wheel, painted it black, got an old stool, painted it white and stuck one on top of the other ... which is what, 30 minutes work?

Like I said, what the fuck do I know ... I just think those two pieces are in totally different leagues.

Especially when you get to shit like an art critic saying a 5 year olds scribbles are worth more than 5P or a dog running randomly round paper with paint on it's paws expresses the dogs emotion.

Eh this a pretty common argument. But I find that it is much easier to understand artwork, espcially modern art when you look at historical context.
While I'm not sure who did that first painting, it looks like a 18th-19th century work. That second one is a famous Marcel Duchamp called Bicycle Wheel. And it is actually a genre of art called readymades. He's the same fella who did the Fountain sculpture above (the urinal).
There are a few simple things to consider when comparing these two works:
1. The idea of painting objects as they were and using traditional of doing it like the first image was going out of style with the increase use of photography in the 1900s. This type of idealistic "true to life" imagery was seen as rout or undesirable to some artists.
2. For many modernist movements there was an increased need to redefine what art was. Duchamp was unique in that he was the first to find art in the objects we use everyday.He choose these works without changing them too drastically. In the case of his found object works, he did change them and display them in such a way that their original purpose became useless.
3. Frankly, Marcel Duchamp's work as well as the work of many early modernists was shocking even during their time. Which for many artists was the point.
4. The first image was probably commissioned by someone to be painted by a professional. Modernists often did "art for arts sake", or create images without worrying about being commissioned.

 

[omega 616]

snip

To echo what others have (probably) said, then what isn't art? If everything ever considered as art, is art, then what isn't? As I have just shown, a fucking bike wheel on fucking stool is art ... so is a dog pile on the floor art? A simple post? A tree? A leaf?

At some point something has to not be art and I'm sorry but I can't consider that crap to art. Others can feel free, I can't stop them, I can only question where do they draw their line?

snip

First off, hats off to you ... you know far more about this than me. Though, that bike wheel thing was by some woman, I assume a copy cat or derivative work.

It's hardly shocking, they are taking objects, then putting them on display ... while looking for that bike wheel, I saw one of a card board box, on a very large base ... I'm not even sure the base was part of the "piece".

Another pet peeve in the category is that style of "painting", where a paint brush is dunked in a pot of paint, then you just make wild slashing motions with your arm, the paint brush never even coming close to the canvass. Then you get some pretentious tool talking total bullshit about how you can feel the emotion of the artist. (if you don't know what I am talking about, watch linkin park - numb at 2:20)

Shit, putting a blob of paint on a piece of paper, blowing it with a straw to make trees is more artistic than that .... shit doodling "tornadoes" when you're bored in school is more artistic than that!

 

[Gorrath]

snip

To echo what others have (probably) said, then what isn't art? If everything ever considered as art, is art, then what isn't? As I have just shown, a fucking bike wheel on fucking stool is art ... so is a dog pile on the floor art? A simple post? A tree? A leaf?

At some point something has to not be art and I'm sorry but I can't consider that crap to art. Others can feel free, I can't stop them, I can only question where do they draw their line?

Great question! What does count as art, and how should we define it? I think art is best described as a process of creation and interpretation/appreciation of the created thing on an emotional/communicative level. So is a leaf art? I'd say all on its own, no. But if someone were to take that leaf and use it as part of a whole in a creative endeavor and then an audience sees the project and is able to consider its meaning/emotional content, then yes, it would be.

Is a unrinal bolted to a wall for an audience to look at art? I'm inclined to say no. There seems to be no transformative process here, no exercise of skill and no creation. Simply displaying an existing object, even if you intend such display to communicate a message, may not qualify as art under the definition I prefer.

I would argue that anything can be art, but not everything is. I think it is important to find a definition which includes both the artist and the audience and provides criteria that is not wholly subjective, that way arguments like, "THis isn't art, it's just paint randomly splattered on a canvas." don't hold water. It may not be good art, but art it is.