Author Topic: "I don't get art"  (Read 23263 times)

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
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Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #50 on: 18 November, 2015, 04:02:48 pm »
Something just occured to me, that seems apposite.

Art makes you think. Great art makes you feel.

Channelling Bruce Lee, eh?

Quote from: Bruce Lee

Don' think, feeeeeeel!

External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #51 on: 18 November, 2015, 04:43:42 pm »
These pronouncements one what is or isn't art make me smile and wince at the same time.

Same here. What makes me wince is the inverted snobbery expressed in the form of recycled platitudes - the stock in trade of taxi drivers, pub bores and Jeremy Clarkson. I'm happy to talk about why I like specific pieces but I don't feel the need to justify whether or not they're "art" - that is just sooooo uninteresting.

I'm with Ruthie on Tracey Emin - she touches a nerve with a lot of her stuff. It's so emotionally raw, it's hard to avoid being affected by it. My wife is a much bigger Emin fan than me though, and I don't always share her enthusiasm.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Ben T

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #52 on: 18 November, 2015, 06:07:59 pm »
My rule of thumb is it had to take skill to think it up AND to create it.
This therefore rules out most "abstract" art whose claim to being art is solely in the idea of it, rather than the actual skill behind the creation. It also rules out Damien Hirst as he didn't even bother creating it himself but employed somebody else to.
It also rules out Lowry, for the converse reason - it took skill to create but is usually of a fairly moribund scene.
eh? I don't get this. He was an incredibly skilled painter who painted places in a way they had never been painted before. Some of his work has such detailed social commentary, it's amazing, really benefits from close study.

The problem with Lowry is that small sections of his (huge) paintings are often reproduced at a magnified scale.

His pictures are of something like the skyline of a load of factories, or a crowd on a grey day in Manchester. That scene wouldn't be that good to look at in the flesh, so why is it in a painting?

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #53 on: 18 November, 2015, 06:15:17 pm »
This is not a tree.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #54 on: 18 November, 2015, 07:01:18 pm »
That scene wouldn't be that good to look at in the flesh, so why is it in a painting?

A northern Spanish village being indiscriminately bombed by fascists wouldn't be good to look at in the flesh either...
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #55 on: 18 November, 2015, 07:07:21 pm »
There's very little that is interesting about a Emin retrospective in terms of the artworks. The combination of the works and those viewing it is a sort of installation in itself.

The piece describes a reaction to that interaction, and the author's disgust at how shallow that is.

The last couple of big exhibitions I went to were at the Imperial War Museum, of WW1, and at the Science Museum, about manufacturing in Britain. I was interested in both the exhibits and the reaction to them.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #56 on: 18 November, 2015, 07:09:07 pm »
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Aunt Maud

  • Le Flâneur.
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #57 on: 18 November, 2015, 07:12:38 pm »

                                                                                                                  .
                                                                                                                    A black square     

LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #58 on: 18 November, 2015, 07:26:59 pm »
This is not a tree.


Very good, all that practice is starting to not pay off.
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

Aunt Maud

  • Le Flâneur.
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #59 on: 18 November, 2015, 07:31:29 pm »

                                                                                                                  .
                                                                                                                    A black square     


A Cubo-Futurist proto-Suprematist layer.

Ben T

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #60 on: 18 November, 2015, 07:50:29 pm »
The combination of the works and those viewing it is a sort of installation in itself.


I wonder if those viewing the viewers appreciate it on a different level.

red marley

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #61 on: 18 November, 2015, 08:14:57 pm »

(Craig Damrauer)

Feel free to choose where you think this lies on the profundity – trite aphorism spectrum, but I like it.

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #62 on: 18 November, 2015, 10:57:59 pm »
This is not a tree.


Unoriginal, Ian. It's been done before ;)


Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #63 on: 18 November, 2015, 11:47:30 pm »


Unoriginal, Ian. It's been done before ;)



I didn't do it.  It's a random piece of clip-art.  It's a round-a-bout way of saying the painting isn't (just) about its subject.

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #64 on: 19 November, 2015, 12:11:19 am »
I do struggle with some "art". It's almost as though, in trying to define what art is, we've broken the shared model that we had before we thought we needed to define it and, now that we have some definitions, we don't know what it is any more.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #65 on: 19 November, 2015, 07:09:32 am »
The word "art" has a bunch of meanings, so trying to pin it down to a single one is futile.  It's like Ray Duncan's preamble on inter-process communication in UNIX: if there are five different methods it usually means that none of them is satisfactory.

As regards someone like Tracy Emin, her main work of art appears to be herself - my feeling about a lot of modern stuff/artists, particularly those of the last 20+ years.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #66 on: 19 November, 2015, 08:05:07 am »
*moves entire thread to First-World Problems thread*
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Aunt Maud

  • Le Flâneur.
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #67 on: 19 November, 2015, 08:23:55 am »
Quite often the concept is better than the real thing..........Ladies and Gentlemen, I present.........

                 




                    

                   ©Someone

red marley

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #68 on: 19 November, 2015, 08:36:36 am »
*moves entire thread to First-World Problems thread*

While "what is art" discussion is well trod, and there will be plenty of others who delve into this much more deeply that we have  (so far), art and our relationship with it is much too important to dismiss as a first world indulgence. A society that ignores the upper bit of Maslow's hierarchy is much diminished. To link this with a P&BI thread, I read today for example, that Lancashire County Council is being forced to cut its entire arts and heritage budget from next year (resulting in, for example the closure of 5 museums along with 40 libraries).

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #69 on: 19 November, 2015, 08:38:13 am »
Lowry and Emin are, in a way, similar - in that a small subsection of their works have become known to the public, and that part of their catalogue misrepresents the whole.

Tracy Emin's installations - in my view- distract from her sketching, and her technical ability, and the way she connects with her audience.
Lowry on the other hand is known for his (retched) 'matchstick cats& dogs' - but his seascapes nearly move me to tears, his erotic drawings are 'interesting' and then there's the enigmatic multiple paintings of 'Anne' . Lowry was at heart very sensual - apart from the bondage, there's the phallic spires. (Today he may possibly have been considered a pervert or a creep, dunno)

It is - has has been said - worth taking an artist's work in the round, rather than judging them on a selected number of high profile pieces.
Too many angry people - breathe & relax.

Ben T

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #70 on: 19 November, 2015, 09:11:44 am »

For me there's a massive difference between "this is not a tree" and "this is not JUST a tree".

This is not a tree:



Whereas  this is not just a tree:


Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #71 on: 19 November, 2015, 10:14:54 am »
Perhaps I need to be clearer.  Here's a photo I took a few weeks ago.  It is not a tree.


LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #72 on: 19 November, 2015, 10:31:29 am »
It is a picture of a stile?
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #73 on: 19 November, 2015, 10:36:30 am »
It is a picture of a stile?

It's a picture of a tree.

LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: "I don't get art"
« Reply #74 on: 19 November, 2015, 10:58:15 am »
I knew we'd get there eventually.
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...