Modern art is often about the experience and emotional expression of the viewer. It's about site and space and location. Art of less contemporary persuasions is often meant to bedisplayed in a frame on a wall or in the form of a statue. If you walk into any MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), you'll find that "art" has transformed. It's engaging. The art is often not just the object being displayed but the interatcion of the people viewing it. Their actions and emotional reponses become part of the art.
I've been thinking a lot about this concept and applying it to finding art in everyday life experiences. And I've been arguing with myself over what is "high art" and if there is such a thing. I think I often use the term to define the difference between bad art and good art. Which is incorrect. Or the difference between professional art and amateur art. Which is also incorrect.
Some examples:
Bad architects - those whose designs fail - not necessarily structural but whose plazas remain vacant and whose bldgs become too expensive to maintain. Versus an architect whose design is a sucess on every level. The comparison does not make the better architecture a "high art" though the better architecture may very well fall into that category.
Poetry written by someone just wishing to release tension versus poets such as T.S. Eliot or Robert Frost. Is calling the amateur poetry a baser art wrong simply because it lacks depth due to the author's perhaps smaller ability? Does high art imply a level of knowledge and thoughtfulness of writing, and poetry itself, and literature that an amatuer may lack? Do we not all start out as amatuers?
So I'm left asking myself what is high art. Not necessarily what is art. I have strong opinions on what is art and what is good art. And I'd like to say with all the art classes and architecture classes and literature, humanities, and history classes that I am fairly knowledgable (at least more than the average person)
But back to contemporary art. A lot of what passes for contemporary art and the reasons it is considered art makes me think of bdsm scenes. Carefully constructed to a particular space, to heighten the awarenesses of the participants - to evoke strong emotions through their interaction. Perhaps not all scenes are artful. Perhaps none are. But I think the elements are there.
And though I said earlier that high art is not simply good art in comparison to bad art ... I think it is a term that states a comparison. I just think it's much more involved than good vs. bad. I think though that there is a sense of drama and emotion in a bdsm scene that is missing in a regular love scene that perhaps makes it high art.
Perhaps high art is just a way of saying elitest art. But I think that's wrong too ... because high art can be enjoyed by all just as fine wine can be enjoyed by all ... it just takes a connoisseur
to know the difference and understand what makes the difference.
___ random late night thoughts - in preparation for a research paper on art versus architecture and architecture as art___
I've been thinking a lot about this concept and applying it to finding art in everyday life experiences. And I've been arguing with myself over what is "high art" and if there is such a thing. I think I often use the term to define the difference between bad art and good art. Which is incorrect. Or the difference between professional art and amateur art. Which is also incorrect.
Some examples:
Bad architects - those whose designs fail - not necessarily structural but whose plazas remain vacant and whose bldgs become too expensive to maintain. Versus an architect whose design is a sucess on every level. The comparison does not make the better architecture a "high art" though the better architecture may very well fall into that category.
Poetry written by someone just wishing to release tension versus poets such as T.S. Eliot or Robert Frost. Is calling the amateur poetry a baser art wrong simply because it lacks depth due to the author's perhaps smaller ability? Does high art imply a level of knowledge and thoughtfulness of writing, and poetry itself, and literature that an amatuer may lack? Do we not all start out as amatuers?
So I'm left asking myself what is high art. Not necessarily what is art. I have strong opinions on what is art and what is good art. And I'd like to say with all the art classes and architecture classes and literature, humanities, and history classes that I am fairly knowledgable (at least more than the average person)
But back to contemporary art. A lot of what passes for contemporary art and the reasons it is considered art makes me think of bdsm scenes. Carefully constructed to a particular space, to heighten the awarenesses of the participants - to evoke strong emotions through their interaction. Perhaps not all scenes are artful. Perhaps none are. But I think the elements are there.
And though I said earlier that high art is not simply good art in comparison to bad art ... I think it is a term that states a comparison. I just think it's much more involved than good vs. bad. I think though that there is a sense of drama and emotion in a bdsm scene that is missing in a regular love scene that perhaps makes it high art.
Perhaps high art is just a way of saying elitest art. But I think that's wrong too ... because high art can be enjoyed by all just as fine wine can be enjoyed by all ... it just takes a connoisseur
to know the difference and understand what makes the difference.
___ random late night thoughts - in preparation for a research paper on art versus architecture and architecture as art___
But I love the birds. I was terrified the first time I saw that. Last spring semester I was supposed to be studying but there was a Hitchcock marathon starting with the Birds and then Notoroious ... and a few others. .. I fell asleep during Psycho which I still haven't seen all the way through 
