Art projects

[novella]

so what you're trying to say is that art exists only then if you sell something worthless or strange to people for a bunch of money...?

It doesn't have to cost anything, in fact. It's the idea that counts. Anyway, things are worth what someone will pay for them. Besides, I don't find these things especially strange; there are stranger things in 'ordinary' life every day. These are just ideas that are wide open to interpretation.

 

[Sergo]

Yep, I liked it very much, it was the most intricate thing I made then, and I was MAD with the people who sold it - as I never intended to sell it, I never photographed it...

Now it is so difficult to imagine that myself and my wife lived entirely on what I earned on selling my netsukes in the art salon on Arbat street for several month back in 1990 - 1991...

 

[Sergo]

It doesn't have to cost anything, in fact. It's the idea that counts. Anyway, things are worth what someone will pay for them. Besides, I don't find these things especially strange; there are stranger things in 'ordinary' life every day. These are just ideas that are wide open to interpretation.

Yep, I think real art is in creating something that never existed before. It may look ugly to some because of it's novelty... But I cannot imagine a piece of soap to be an art object because it was made of some fat cat's fat... That's a new idea, yes... But somehow I cannot see art in it.

And if you can get money for a thing you created, - it is not necessary mean that you created a piece of art. It may be that the customer is just as dumb as the creator really... And vice versa.

 

[Acolyte]

so what you're trying to say is that art exists only then if you sell something worthless or strange to people for a bunch of money...?

And if it's edible, it's gourmet. *grin*

But seriously, at this point I have to interject my father's famed wisdom. Maybe I should say infamed. I think he was talking about the listed value of a car one of my sisters was trying to sell:

"It's only worth what someone's willing to pay for it, honey."

 

[novella]

But I cannot imagine a piece of soap to be an art object because it was made of some fat cat's fat... That's a new idea, yes... But somehow I cannot see art in it.

To me, that's the difference between conceptual art and visual art.


I'm not an advocate for conceptual art. I think most of it is pretty lame. But every once in a while you see something that makes you stop and think and that becomes unforgettable. I always remember a certain graffiti I saw a long time ago. Someone had written on the side of a big bank building in NY "Kill Banks." I thought that was silly, but I never forgot it.

 

[Sergo]

Sorry, Novella, but this is a road to nowhere.
If someone shitted on the roof of your car, it surely would be remembered by you, but I doubt if that could be considered an art, conceptual or other.
All these cadavers with the guts uncovered are surely to be remembered, and I heard many praises to these "works of art". But I may be a retrograde, but I cannot consider ABSOLUTELY anything staying out as a work of art. Art could be fun, could be serious, could be sad... OK, looking at open cadavers can make one think of life and what awaits us beyond it... But...
Wow... It seems all my reasons are lame...
Yes, seeng shit on the roof of your car could make you think of awful lot of things, and quite intensively think... So that's exactly the result one would expect the work of art would be having on a person...

 

[novella]

Sorry, Novella, but this is a road to nowhere.
If someone shitted on the roof of your car, it surely would be remembered by you, but I doubt if that could be considered an art, conceptual or other.
All these cadavers with the guts uncovered are surely to be remembered, and I heard many praises to these "works of art". But I may be a retrograde, but I cannot consider ABSOLUTELY anything staying out as a work of art. Art could be fun, could be serious, could be sad... OK, looking at open cadavers can make one think of life and what awaits us beyond it... But...
Wow... It seems all my reasons are lame...
Yes, seeng shit on the roof of your car could make you think of awful lot of things, and quite intensively think... So that's exactly the result one would expect the work of art would be having on a person...

I agree with you, Sergo. The fault of conceptual art lies in the fact that the viewer has to interpret the intention of the artist, which is where it goes off the rails.

In other art forms--literature, painting, sculpture, film--the intention of the artist is irrelevant. The piece speaks for itself, and that's how it should be.

But when is a bar of soap more than a bar of soap? When you know it's made from the fat of an Italian politician? Or when you put it in a glass box and give it a title? Or when the 'artist' tells you it's artwork? That's where I get lost. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." No matter what the artist says about his/her work, the work is just what it is.


If the object doesn't speak for itself, then I must question whether it's art at all.

There are people who say they are writers who never write anything, but they call themselves writers because they say they have the intention to write. Conceptual art is like that.

 

[Sergo]

I agree with you, Sergo. The fault of conceptual art lies in the fact that the viewer has to interpret the intention of the artist, which is where it goes off the rails.

In other art forms--literature, painting, sculpture, film--the intention of the artist is irrelevant. The piece speaks for itself, and that's how it should be.

But when is a bar of soap more than a bar of soap? When you know it's made from the fat of an Italian politician? Or when you put it in a glass box and give it a title? Or when the 'artist' tells you it's artwork? That's where I get lost. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." No matter what the artist says about his/her work, the work is just what it is.


If the object doesn't speak for itself, then I must question whether it's art at all.

There are people who say they are writers who never write anything, but they call themselves writers because they say they have the intention to write. Conceptual art is like that.

I would like to hear your opinion on intentions. See what I am reading at the moment? There are some places there depicting Michelangelo's intentions in carving, (whether real or invented by the author is beside the point), which changed perception of people seeing his marbles, when they learned these intentions.
When I did something - it was always some idea, some deep reason behind each thing that made me do it. So, I imagine, to know (or to guess) author's intentions could be very important to understand better (and to like) an artefact.
So that's not only "why they shitted on my car" that could be found about art, I imagine...

 

[novella]

I would like to hear your opinion on intentions. See what I am reading at the moment? There are some places there depicting Michelangelo's intentions in carving, (whether real or invented by the author is beside the point), which changed perception of people seeing his marbles, when they learned these intentions.
When I did something - it was always some idea, some deep reason behind each thing that made me do it. So, I imagine, to know (or to guess) author's intentions could be very important to understand better (and to like) an artefact.
So that's not only "why they shitted on my car" that could be found about art, I imagine...

In my opinion, no matter what the artist's intention, the work should speak completely for itself. A writer might hand you a crap book and say, "my intention was to write a masterpiece." So what. Either it is or it isn't.

A fashion designer might send a load of models out onto a runway wearing moon boots and fur hats. "My intention is to show the intersection of primitive and technology." So what.

We may know the intention of Rothko or Corot, but it really doesn't affect the power of the work. The art is the product, not the intention. Though a scholar might like to know whether van Gogh was insane, if his paintings sucked nobody would care. I think valuing an artist's intention, weighing the work in terms of it, is prejudicial.

Say a composer writes a piece that he says is a parody of a well-known other piece. Either that is heard or it isn't. Just because he says it's so doesn't make it so.

 

[lovermuffin]

The art is the product, not the intention.

Sorry, I must say I have to disagree! The beauty of a piece of art, I believe, can be found in either the physical work itself, or within the concept that a piece of art is representing. My favorite modern artist is Damien Hirst. His artwork features rotting carcasses, preserved animals, pharmeceutical equipment... But the thing about his artwork is, he tries to make people more aware of themselves and their life by showing a skewed version about what reality is. He's not saying in a book, "this is what you need to be aware of...", he's showing an extreme example so that the viewers look at that piece of art can see past the physical aspect of it, and meditate on the title of the work to construct their own interpretation of the artist's intent, gaining insight into their own selves during the process. To me, this is what true art is: it makes you aware of yourself and your constructed reality, through a new perspective.

 

[honeydevil]

And if it's edible, it's gourmet. *grin*

But seriously, at this point I have to interject my father's famed wisdom. Maybe I should say infamed. I think he was talking about the listed value of a car one of my sisters was trying to sell:

"It's only worth what someone's willing to pay for it, honey."

sorry novella und Acolyte, i disagree... there is soo much more to art then what somebody is willing to pay... there is the thought/idea, the way you do it, the experience and the nostalgic aspect, it is worth far more than money, it is a statement, a piece of your mind, it is you, would you say that you only so much worth as someone is willing to pay??

 

[Sergo]

A fashion designer might send a load of models out onto a runway wearing moon boots and fur hats. "My intention is to show the intersection of primitive and technology." So what.

Know what? That would be my kind of show. Cannot make myself stop liking young beautiful flesh.

Really, I have had a very lengthy discussion on one of our Russian forums - Ekaterinburg one. E1. My opponent's point of view had been that the only sense that could be found in an object (any object at all - a work of art or a spork by Motokid) depends only on the end user of the object, and never depends on the creator of the object. I made him to acknowledge some restrictions on his idea, but generally I had to understand that he was essentially right.

And. Using this idea - that what we think of a work of art depends fully on us and absolutely not on the artist, we would come to a conclusion that it is very much the same what an artist uses to create his/her items - Carrera marble, decomposing corpses, live mice, thin air. The only impact that art has on our senses is what we ourselves wish to experience. From this point of view it is all the same what we consider an art object: a painting of Botticelli, or the neighbour dog's droppings...

Somehow I cannot see this idea as true...

 

[lies]

sorry novella und Acolyte, i disagree... there is soo much more to art then what somebody is willing to pay... there is the thought/idea, the way you do it, the experience and the nostalgic aspect, it is worth far more than money, it is a statement, a piece of your mind, it is you, would you say that you only so much worth as someone is willing to pay??

No, I don't think so... It's all perception. Maybe if a lot of people perceive something as good, you might want to call it art, but still.

 

[novella]

sorry novella und Acolyte, i disagree... there is soo much more to art then what somebody is willing to pay... there is the thought/idea, the way you do it, the experience and the nostalgic aspect, it is worth far more than money, it is a statement, a piece of your mind, it is you, would you say that you only so much worth as someone is willing to pay??

honeydevil, I believe you are misreading this discussion completely. I say very clearly above that art is not defined at all by what it costs.

The point about something being worth what a person is willing to pay is a separate point. If you read the thread above, you will see that.

I think we are in agreement that art is not ultimately valued by its marketplace price.

 

[Sergo]

I think we are in agreement that art is not ultimately valued by its marketplace price.

I hope yes.

But I would rather say that to know author intentions was important for better perception of an art object. Of course everybody is free to guess that some author just tried to make an elephant out of a fly, telling lots of ideas supposedly contained in, say, a stained bottle of beer, or a piece of soap...
But to know what Michelangelo thought when making his David could be very interesting and add a new adge to percepting of the statue otherwise just a perfect muscular masculine figure... OK, that's not bad too...

 

[Acolyte]

Zoinks! I didn't mean to imply that the instrinsic value of art is equal to its selling price. If that were so, painters, poets, composers, and other artists would be paid FAR more than they are now (if they are paid at all)!

I was referencing extremely odd items that some might consider art (like soap made from a politician's fat).

In my opinion, art is only successful if it does convey meaning to the reader/viewer/listener/experiencer. Even if it doesn't convey exactly the same thing to everyone, or exactly what the artist was attempting to say, it must convey. Simply saying "this work of mine means" isn't enough, which is why I tend to classify a lot of things (like a large cube) as "not art". Sure, it could be someone talking about the futility of modern existence, but it doesn't make me think that. It's failed as art, to me.

However, it might make someone else genuinely experience that, and then, it's art to them. The whole topic is very subjective.

For example, there was a photograph a while back of a large amount of elephant dung on a painting of the Virgin Mary. Christian Americans went up in arms over this defilement. However, in certain African cultures, elephant dung is an intense symbol for growth, renewal, recreation, and the sprining forth of new life (for obvious reasons), and the corollary between that and the painting it sat upon was only positive about the way in which the two were similar. To whom was it art?

 

[honeydevil]

honeydevil, I believe you are misreading this discussion completely. I say very clearly above that art is not defined at all by what it costs.

The point about something being worth what a person is willing to pay is a separate point. If you read the thread above, you will see that.

I think we are in agreement that art is not ultimately valued by its marketplace price.

Sorry maybe i read it wrong...

 

[honeydevil]

Thanks novella, i went back and reread the thread and found a few post i missed before...
And after i realized my mistake i think we agree that art is something different for everybody and very hard to discuss...

 

[KBomb_reads]

I would want to do something like
Cristo. I think I would have to wrap a mountain tough, if means were unlimitted. Or maybe a large amusement park, so the park guests would have nothing better to do than read a book.

 

[sirmyk]

I would Syran Wrap the Washington Monument and call it "Politicking With Protection".