Let's Talk Art!

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Bustertheclown
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Re: Let's Talk Art!

Post by Bustertheclown »

Guildmaster Van wrote: Image
You do understand that is satire, right?
Guildmaster Van wrote:I hate art, almost as much as I hate artists (The irony is not lost on me). Modern "art" is a fraud and the game of charlatans...
Comments like this always perplex me, yet people repeat these types of sentiments all the time. Honestly, would it be very hard for me to pick out modern "art" (as you call it) that you did like? Probably not. It probably wouldn't be so hard to find all sorts of modern "art" (as you call it) pieces that you can really dig. So then, where would we be? Do we have to start qualifying our statements? "I hate art and artists! Modern "art" is a sham! Except that guy over there, and what he's doing..."

Art can never be judged in such broadly-painted, black-and-white terms wherein if some art is deemed unworthy, all art must be unworthy. That's just silly. It's too big. It encompasses too much of human invention. Even terrible contemporary art tends to have its merits in how it fails. The problem is that people don't have the patience to consider those merits. They'd rather just dismiss it as trickery or trash, and let their attentions instead be turned by the latest American Idol. Now there's art we can all agree on, am I right?!

Fuck that.
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Kris X
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Re: Let's Talk Art!

Post by Kris X »

I'd say art depends on the person turning it. You could be an "artist at heart" and churn out "bad art" or you can be a "faux artist" and turn out great stuff...

For me I guess it's all about the soul behind the art, and perhaps sometimes the brain too.

Like you said though, it's all in perspective really.
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McDuffies
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Re: Let's Talk Art!

Post by McDuffies »

Bustertheclown wrote:Well, yeah, he did. He seemed much more in his element when writing brutal tragedies.
Actual comment gave me impression that he thought all Shakespeare plays are hokey, uninteligible situation comedies. And anyways, comedies (including situation comedies) are just as important genre as tragedies, and to call Shakespeare's comedies "hokey" and "uninteligible" means to ignore years of evolution of literature by trying to compare Shakespeare to today's writers who, by the way, grew up from his tradition and learned on his mistakes; it means to ignore the time in which he wrote and to expect him to conform to today's audience instead of the audience of his time (I suspect, considering the "uninteligible" quip, to write in modern language too); it means to ignore what drama was before and after him, to ignore remarkable influence he had on literature; in short words it means to be undescribably shallow and ignorant.
You don't have to like Shakespeare to have respect for him, really.
I'd just end up saying that Shakespeare wrote his plays to be popular, not to be deep and timeless, and then someone would say I hate the theater and English, and then I could never return because it would spiral out of control
So Mozart wrote his music to be popular, so what? Writing popular art does not instantly make it bad, or "hokey", or "uninteligible".
Art can never be judged in such broadly-painted, black-and-white terms wherein if some art is deemed unworthy, all art must be unworthy. That's just silly. It's too big. It encompasses too much of human invention. Even terrible contemporary art tends to have its merits in how it fails. The problem is that people don't have the patience to consider those merits. They'd rather just dismiss it as trickery or trash, and let their attentions instead be turned by the latest American Idol. Now there's art we can all agree on, am I right?!

Fuck that.
It seems like comic authors stereotypically have aversion towards gallery art. When I read the comic you posted, I thought of that usual "Kirby is better than this guy, he should be in gallery instead" attitude which makes many folks reject all high art without ever giving it a chance. But if you're working in visual art, it's only logical to want to know as much about the field as you can, and I'm happy that many of people here attend art school and are more open-minded and knowledgeable than your average comic-book guy.

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Killbert-Robby
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Re: Let's Talk Art!

Post by Killbert-Robby »

McDuffies wrote:
I'd just end up saying that Shakespeare wrote his plays to be popular, not to be deep and timeless, and then someone would say I hate the theater and English, and then I could never return because it would spiral out of control
So Mozart wrote his music to be popular, so what? Writing popular art does not instantly make it bad, or "hokey", or "uninteligible".
God see, it's already happening, I didn't say any of that. I just said he wrote plays to be popular. Suddenly OH YEAH WELL I DONT THINK HIS STUFF WAS BAD, YOU PLAY-er-HATER


Also, considering posts about both music and art you've made where you say stuff is bad and hokey specifically because it was made for nothing but popularity, well, I found this very ironic.
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Bustertheclown
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Re: Let's Talk Art!

Post by Bustertheclown »

McDuffies wrote:
Bustertheclown wrote:Well, yeah, he did. He seemed much more in his element when writing brutal tragedies.
Actual comment gave me impression that he thought all Shakespeare plays are hokey, uninteligible situation comedies.
Naw, I'm pretty sure that Bagge was specifically referring to Shakespeare's comedies. It's one of the few points within "Real" "Art" that I agree with. Shakespeare's comedies are little more than episodes of Elizabethan Friends.
It seems like comic authors stereotypically have aversion towards gallery art. When I read the comic you posted, I thought of that usual "Kirby is better than this guy, he should be in gallery instead" attitude which makes many folks reject all high art without ever giving it a chance. But if you're working in visual art, it's only logical to want to know as much about the field as you can, and I'm happy that many of people here attend art school and are more open-minded and knowledgeable than your average comic-book guy.
I've noticed that, too. I'm glad you mentioned it, because I thought I was just being overly-judgmental of cartoonists. It makes me wonder where the vitriol comes from, though. I feel like, perhaps, it's the fact that they are trained professionals in a field of the arts which is pretty tightly associated with populism in general. Reflecting on the elitism that much of gallery art projects these days, an elitism that has excluded cartooning pretty handily, has led to bad blood. Cartoonists are made to feel inadequate, yet have a public forum, so they take it out on the gallery system. I find myself wondering, though, if the changes in influence will also change the outlook. The way seems to be opening toward the unironic literary and aesthetic appreciation of cartooning within certain fine arts cadres. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
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Phact0rri
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Re: Let's Talk Art!

Post by Phact0rri »

Killbert-Robby wrote:Also, considering posts about both music and art you've made where you say stuff is bad and hokey specifically because it was made for nothing but popularity, well, I found this very ironic.

Fucking sellout.
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<KittyKatBlack> You look deranged. But I mean that in the nicest way possible. ^_^;

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Re: Let's Talk Art!

Post by McDuffies »

Killbert-Robby wrote:
McDuffies wrote: Writing popular art does not instantly make it bad, or "hokey", or "uninteligible".
God see, it's already happening, I didn't say any of that.
Actually, that's almost literally what you said. Observe:
me wrote:Shakespeare wrote "hockey, unintelligible situation comedies"?
Killbert-Robby wrote:That's exactly what he did. Shakespeare was a playwright who wrote to entertain the lowest denominator, to get as big an audience as possible.
Also, considering posts about both music and art you've made where you say stuff is bad and hokey specifically because it was made for nothing but popularity, well, I found this very ironic.
I don't criticize things just because their artists strieve to be popular and have mass appeal. I criticize things when attempt at populism is cheap and simpleminded. It is only reasonable that every author wants to communicate with as much audience as he can. It is what he attempts to communicate that makes the difference.
Shakespeare literary pulled comedy out of gutter of crude sexual jokes and simpleminded plots which were just excuse for those jokes, he added a level of sofistication to theatre. Despite writing for masses, if anything, he was responsible for raising the bar in audience's sophistication.

You know, it would be much easier talking to you if you didn't insist on adding personal attacks to every arguement. Perhaps then you'd avoid things like that last week's disaster in GD. :-?
Shakespeare's comedies are little more than episodes of Elizabethan Friends.
Perhaps, but you can't ignore the fact that he lived 500 years before friends. Doesn't that, then, mean that Shakespeare set the model for plenty of today's comedy, including "Friends"?
I've noticed that, too. I'm glad you mentioned it, because I thought I was just being overly-judgmental of cartoonists. It makes me wonder where the vitriol comes from, though. I feel like, perhaps, it's the fact that they are trained professionals in a field of the arts which is pretty tightly associated with populism in general. Reflecting on the elitism that much of gallery art projects these days, an elitism that has excluded cartooning pretty handily, has led to bad blood. Cartoonists are made to feel inadequate, yet have a public forum, so they take it out on the gallery system. I find myself wondering, though, if the changes in influence will also change the outlook. The way seems to be opening toward the unironic literary and aesthetic appreciation of cartooning within certain fine arts cadres. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
For one I always think that ghetto in which comics are is largely their fault. It's the insulation of comic world, that nerdish obsession with irrelevant stuff in comics like those elaborate superhero chronologies, nitpicking in looking for inconsistencies, over-the-top pop-psychology, etc. To me those things are attempts to elevate comics to a status of art, but elite art doesn't actually value those qualities too high (and neither do I to tell the truth), not when we're talking about comics in which subtext and symbolism are delivered like a hammer in the forehead. Comic ghetto is similar to SF ghetto, a group that set it's own criteriums and is always surprised that outside world doesn't anknowledge the same criteriums.
To tell the truth, comics were for a long time considered "low art", so now there's a lot of defensiveness. But times have changed, Little Nemo, Krazy Kat, Crumb and Spiegelman will gladly be accepted to "high art", but comic fandom is still defensive because Stan Lee won't get the same kind of credits.

That Crumb comic that Van posted surely makes you think about a few things. Anyone who's knowledgeable about the subject, knows that one of major struggles of 20th century art has been taking art down from the pedestal. Inclusion of elements of folk art has been going since impressionism, african tribal art since Picasso, then there's children art, art of people with special needs and then also Lichtenstein's comics and Duchamp's fountain, and don't we all still quote Warhol's "15 minutes of fame" remark? 20th century has definitely destroyed the image of artist as a special, god-given person and a tortured soul, and now we're all making art and don't think that you need some kind of epiphany from the sky for that.
The reason why many people still think that art is reserved for chosen ones is, I think, actually because they haven't been following modern art. A sort of anachronism, attitude from previous centuries that is difficult to weed out.
(Of course it's important to mention that while anyone can make art, just like with any skill, some people are better at it than others, while everyone can indeed do art, not everyone can do art that other people will enjoy.)

I think that final consequence of it is that concept of "elite art" is dated, from times when difference between "elite" and "folk" was a sharp one, and somehow devolved into "high vs popular"; but Radiohead and Beatles are being performed by classic musicians, Philip Glass includes pop music elements in his works, Banksy's works are exibited in galleries and Umberto Eco is writing a preface for Corto Maltese comics, so the difference is, to say the least, very blurred.
The vibe that I get from comic artists and fans who complain about the state of art is not that they want to erase difference between "high" and "low" art, they actually want to be new "high art", but otherwise to preserve status quo. This means, for instance, that they'll still be able to look down at mediums which they consider lower than their own, like video games. They don't wanna take art from pedestal, what they really want is to climb to the pedestal themselves. Consider that comic guy: he thinks that Duchamp's fountain was a prank - a work which redefined art and minimized the role of craftmanship is a prank. He doesn't really want art to be redefined in the first place.

Which would, I think, return us to the era when craftmanship was equaled to art. Many people still think in those terms. It's specially easy for a comic artist like us to misplace craftmanship for artistic value because, I think that, all of us have been, at least in one period, obsessed with improving our craft, and when you get too deep into it you can kind of lose perspective.
Anyways, I think that many people, when watching pieces of art that seemingly don't take much technical perfection to execute (specially since most of us don't know about painting aspects, like preparing the surface and such stuff) think that they've seen more technically sophicticated art in their favourite comic, and so on and so on.

Art schools probably are sometimes dumbing down and shoving people into molds. But it seems to me that people who attend art schools here have it right, that knowing more about history of visual art gives you more different perspectives from which you can look at things, being more open-minded and all... kind of like you said, puts you in a certain place in art chronology.

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Kuakistar13
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Re: Let's Talk Art!

Post by Kuakistar13 »

One thing I think is weird is the continuing attempt to "define" art. It seems to me the point of any art piece is to defy previous expressions :D
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Re: Let's Talk Art!

Post by McDuffies »

Kuakistar13 wrote:One thing I think is weird is the continuing attempt to "define" art. It seems to me the point of any art piece is to defy previous expressions :D
Heh heh, true.

---
Ok I liked searching web for representative Mondrian pieces so I figured I could do the same for Paul Klee.

Ok well, he's certainly a painter whose works lose the least in books of reproductions being that his works are usually in small format so when they allow to be printed in a book in original format. Not that it replaces seeing them in original. Lots of them are in his foundation museum in Bern. Twittering Machine, I think, is in New York:
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I've read dozens of different interpretations of his works over the years, one thing that they all share is impression that Klee must be one of the most philosophical, spiritual painters of his era. Being that he was a teacher in Bauhaus, he developed a very complicated system of believs about art - he was not too interested in teaching techniques, though that's probably not what he was brought in for anyway.
His teaching notes have been published and I've read them - not that I understood most of it, it was several years ago and stuff was pretty abstract, but basis of it is that elements of art like dots, lines and surfaces are elemental forces that have life of their own and form meanings on their own.
This was incorporated into his creative process. For instance, often, he's work on canvas surface very long, until some subject arised from the surface by itself. Other times, his paintings would start life practically as phone doodles. Example of the former is "Senecio":
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Which, I think, started as a patchy doodle of a man's face, and later work on the surface gave it that rustic look.

Example of the former is Fruchte Auf Rot:
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It was executed on his violin hankerchief. Over the time, lines and spots appeared on the hankerchief from the use, and he recognized a mothive in these lines and finished the painting.
Similar case was with Red Baloon, where he used natural seams from one found piece of cloth as a basis for his painting:
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Then there's Refuge:
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It's one of my personal favourites. At first sight, figure in the middle is taken as a creature, half of human body, and curtains above suggest that he's on a theatre stage. The more you look, the more figure looks like a swimmer, and curtains actually become sea waves.

I think that the reason I liked Klee from start was the variety of styles, techniques and moods he was working in. He's an artist for whom you can't find one representative style, rather you can point at numerous styles which are all unmistakeably his own.
Case in point you have simple stream-of-the-consciousness pieces:
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You have paintings which were pure exploration of colour, often attempts to represent musical forms through painting:
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http://wahooart.com/A55A04/w.nsf/OPRA/B ... e-_sum.Jpg

His very symbolic "landscapes":
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His "scratchy" paintings in the vein of "Twittering machine":
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(strange enough, one friend took the cross in the background to be symbolic of Klee's religious tendencies... I always thought it was there to symbolize stability)

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Paintings with plenty of cross-hetching in the vein of "Refuge":
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His famous viaducts:
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Which are often taken as representation of incoming fascism, though I've read interpretation which claims that archs actualy symbolise creativity and disorder which are to opose to fascism.

His later paintings in which he turned landscapes into systems of symbols:
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And then paintings which you just can't compare to anything else:
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From the simplest
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to the most elaborate:
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Literally, whenever I though I saw all Klee's faces, I'd find about a painting of his that looks like nothing of his I've seen before.

Other strong thing is his suggestive power.
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In "Storm over the city", sprayed background and the doodle in the foreground may mean various subjects, but what really triggers the interpretation, what makes us see the work as what is written in the title, is that one little roof over there, because of it, everything else in the painting clicks into place and allow us to see painting as representation of actual scene.
That's the thing that impresses me. Often, it's one or two signs that turn bunch of abstract lines and tones into a representational painting.

Near his death he was still painting but his lines weren't as lively, his subjects were darker and techniques were rougher, sometimes pigment applied to the canvas by finger.
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One can attribute this to his declining health, but it was definitely appropriate - title of this painting is Death and Fire, and painting is as if executed by a dying man - whether by choice or by circumstance, it is perfect.

But the great piece that he made short before his death was Kettle-drummer:
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Drummer is made of only two sticks and one eye. The rough brushes, the two red spots, the simplicity, everything says that drummer is counting off moments till death.

One thing that's always been fascinating to me is that an artist who became known for childlike playful paintings, paintings of puppet theatres and folk tale atmosphere, started his career with a series of rather morbid etchings:
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One day I'll definitely make a comic based on this perspective:
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Re: Let's Talk Art!

Post by Mvmarcz »

McDuffies wrote:
Art schools probably are sometimes dumbing down and shoving people into molds. But it seems to me that people who attend art schools here have it right, that knowing more about history of visual art gives you more different perspectives from which you can look at things, being more open-minded and all... kind of like you said, puts you in a certain place in art chronology.

It really depends on the school and even more the professors under which people study.
I do agree with you quite a bit about art history. Learning art history as with learning any history helps people understand the world around them better. Art reflects the time and one move is a reaction to the previous. You may not like a certain movement but it's existence is no less significant because some people don't think it's relevant or aesthetically pleasing. One of my professors told once about how when she was a student she hated de Kooning's work, couldn't stand it, but as she was finishing grad school began to understand his work and his reasoning behind it. She still doesn't care for it but she no longer feels it isn't worthy of being called "art".
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