Dead Art by Dead Artists

[CreamyLady]

One of the more trying parts (for me) of my course of study is having to go to museums and galleries, looking at the works of many artists.

I love art, I really do, and wouldn't mind it so much except that the proportion of what I think is good is so much smaller than the stuff that I think is, well, crap.

It is so subjective, and I got into an argument with one of my instructors about it. He was pushing an exhibit of conceptual art that left me cold, and was criticizing my fascination with a collection of Etruscan and Roman glass.

Anyway, he told me not to waste my time on dead art by dead artists. I told him that if a piece still says something to the viewer, it can't be dead art, even though the artist might be dust.

I told him I got more of a sense of life from the glass than I did from somebody's disjointed words painted on a floor. He told ME that the disjointed words were alive, and one should spend one's time with the living.

I think my question here is: can works of art maintain a sense of relevance, and life, even when the fashion of art has moved forward?

Does it really matter if the artist is living or not?

Thank you.

 

[Expertise]

I am nigh on to ignorant when it comes to art...but give me a "David", Rembrandt,Vermeer(sp) or Monet over three big stripes on a canvas that sells for several million anyday.

I don't know art. I do know what I like and isn't art in the eye of the beholder?

 

[Patryn]

I don't think it matters in the least. I'm not a huge art fan, more into literature. Do Tolstoy's and Twain's works still have life and affect their readers? What about Poe? These authors will never really die, perse. There will always be someone who finds something worth keeping in their books, so they are never really dead.

Same with movies. The screen gives one a sort of immortality. If you have even one fan in the darkest corner of the world who has your works, you will forever be alive to at least that one person.

There's some objects d'art today that to me, have no artistic value whatsoever. Take, for example, the newest piece of "art" at my school. It's rocks wrapped in metal wire with a tree planted in it. Cost $60,000 to build and looks like it was done by a grade schooler. That, to me, was dead before it even came to be.

"Living" creations are in the eye of the beholder. If it's alive to you, it's alive.

 

[Merelan]

Mark Twain, an artist too, often said that museums and art galleries left him cold and bored. He felt bad about this, truly. He wondered if there was something missing in him that didn't "see" what everyone else did. Then he discovered that it was the amount they cram into them that did it. If he could just look at a few pieces, then he enjoyed them more. Of course, he, and I, preferred to be left alone and not annoyed by intellectual showoffs while we look and ponder.
The definition of art is an elusive thing. Anything that "speaks" to you, whether good or bad, is art. Simple? No, but the only definition that has ever worked for me.
While I may not like something, I appreciate what the artist was feeling and saying at the time.
Ageless and timeless is art, in whatever form it is. And I include many professions in this catagory too. Not just the tangible things you can touch. For example, the art of healing. We all know someone, whether in the medical field or not, who makes you feel better with a touch, a look, a word. They seem to know what is needed and do it, unconciously for the most part.
Okay, enough rambling. Back to my corner.

 

[CreamyLady]

Patryn, I must say that I'm still trying to figure out how someone could turn a living tree into dead art. The lack of vision must be mind-blowing.

I worked once for law firm that commissioned a piece of sculpture to grace the lobby of its new building. The sculpture looked like a carefully rendered calling card left by a geometric dog.

I agree with you complete, by the way. There is so much from the history of humanity that still rings true. We are always finding things to laugh at, that our distant ancestors also found sidesplitting. We often cry at the same things, too.

 

[Sxxyangl]

the most fascinating piece of art, which i have yet to see in person, has to be "a starry night" whenever i see this one painting, i am awestruck at the colors and the movement which is so visible in a still work. how can that painting be dead art when it portrays such life?

 

[Bliss]

I agree with these other ladies. Also, to me music is art and of course it matters little, for enjoyment purposes, if the artist remains on this earth.

While I can certainly see Mark Twain's point, museums serve as a visiting place for those who cannot afford to collect the few or many works which they enjoy - much like a library. So while I might not like everything on display, I'm damned glad they're all there.

Those paintings that amount to 3 dab-a-dots and an angry blue square allow one to appreciate that the "Emperor's new clothes" live on and on.

 

[Skibum]

i am the last person to be an art critic. All I can say is I consider good art to be what I like, and to hell with a critic or teacher who tells me what I should or should not like.

 

[Whispersecret]

Hey, CL, just been wonderin'...you live in Pasadena...are you attending Art Center?

I think your art teacher is full of shit. Etruscan and Roman glass is as much art as his words on the floor. Art is a very subjective thing and he has no business--especially in his position as TEACHER--trying to force his vision of what is art upon you.

Personally, some dead art by dead people moves me. Some of it leaves me cold. Some of it is interesting, only because it is so old and so famous. I saw the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and wasn't really that impressed, except for the fact that it was The Mona Lisa. What was more impressive was the security measures they had surrounding it. You could barely see it through the Plexiglass.

On the other hand, the sculpture of Nike (headless! heh heh) was really strikingly majestic to me. To each his own.

Abstract art doesn't really appeal to me, but perhaps I'm like Twain, and something is missing inside me. It doesn't really matter in the long run because there is art that I can appreciate.

[Edited by whispersecret on 08-23-2000 at 11:26 AM]

 

[Merelan]

Let me clarify what I meant about Twain. He liked art, but felt that after awhile it all looked alike to him. VBecause over and over you see what is suppose to be "great" art, by the "Masters". After a bit you get numb, stop feeling. And he would stand there looking at something he liked, and be told it wasn't art. What he didn't like was often what the "intellectuals" with him said he should. It was then that he started wondering about something missing in him. Till one day he was alone in a room with one painting. And the glory and beauty of it shone to him. He then came to the realization that we often try to "see" too much. Both in the number of items they often, and especially in his day, crammed into the museums and in the "hidden" meaning the artist had.
Of course, knowing his sense of humour he could have been making it up, but I doubt it. He mentions it in many of his travel books.
Did any of that make sense?

 

[CreamyLady]

WS, only if my portfolio gets to be a lot better than it is now! I am back at the beginning. However, I had a cousin who attended Art Center; his work was spectacular.

I find some contemporary art is very good, even if it isn't representational of anything in particular. I saw a piece at MOCA involving neon numbers and stuffed alligators running up the wall. It made me laugh, and I enjoyed it tremendously; especially trying to come up with a reason behind it. I never did. I realize others wouldn't think it was art at all.

As for the instructor, well, we are going to be duking it out all semester. He teaches well, even if he has deplorable taste in art!

 

[Rand al'Thor]

I think that guy is pretty screwed up for an art teacher... I've had one art class, and I'm actually glad I took it. The teacher showed us the art, without ever giving his own opinions of it. He did say WHY the art is supposed to mean something, though.

At the start of that semester, I could not stand most abstract, abstract expressionist, or conceptual art, but after taking that class, I'm a pretty big Jackson Pollock & Lee Krasner fan.

Rand al'Thor
The Dragon Reborn

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Crafty Artists

Art ceases to remain art, once monetary gain had been gotten. Why an artist takes payment for his or her creation - it ceases being art and becomes a craft.

 

[Expertise]

Holy shit! Spunky just said something intelligent! Worse yet an argument can be made for his case.

*I'll be over in the corner dazed and confused over this developement*

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

I will never take any money -

I actually have folks interested in publishing my shit (cause to me, and I'm sure many of you would agree, it's all shit) I call it spew - I spew shit. Anyway - some folks want to organize it up and bind it up and sell it. NO FUCKING WAY! I don't believe in it. Besides I'm lazy - to me all the fun is in the spewing - whether it's my music, my paintings/drawings or this crapolla. Spew it and leave it behind. I get bored with "working" on it - it ceases to be fun and becomes work. I got this stack of shit 6 foot tall - ton's of shit - tons of tapes with weird crap on'em. They can pile it all on my dead body, douse in fuel and burn'em all up. Through my ashes on a home grown tomato garden as my friend tipped fresh Budweiser's toward the pyre. That's all I want.

 

[Skibum]

You'll never have to worry about me buying any of it, Sparky.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Of course not -

None of it will ever see the light of day. Besides, for all you know you could be buying it now. Under my real name - Dean Koontz - or is that Carl Hiasen?

 

[April]

I totally agree with what Whispersecret said. CL, your art teacher sounds like an art snob. It's one thing for him to express his interests and likes, but to insult your interests and likes, is just not ethical.

WS, I am envious that you were in the Louvre. Hubby and I took a tour to Paris, but that weekend, nearly all the museum workers went on strike, and the Louvre was closed. Along with the Musee d'Orsay. Big bummer.

I have two favorite artists. Georgia O'Keefe, and Salvador Dali. I really like his work, because every time I look at it, I see something new.

 

[Weird Harold]

Anyway, he told me not to waste my time on dead art by dead artists. I told him that if a piece still says something to the viewer, it can't be dead art, even though the artist might be dust.

You are right, your instructor is wrong.

I'm not an artist, nor am I much interested in "art for art's sake." Like most people, I just know what I like. If a piece of art can move you centuries after the artists is dead, it obviously has to be a piece of true art.

Many artists weren't appreciated in their own lifetime. I think it could be argued that it isn't really "art" until it has outlived it's creator. anyone can claim to be creating "art", but like the VISA check card commercial, it's still a blank canvas until it has withstood the test of time.

 

[Never]

Art ceases to remain art, once monetary gain had been gotten. Why an artist takes payment for his or her creation - it ceases being art and becomes a craft.

So, Homer, Shakespeare, Poe, Twain, Picasso and Leonardo DeVinci weren't artists?

 

[Patryn]

Oh yes, the tree. Actually it's supposed to be a sculpture, or so they tell me, and it's called Basin. Um...yeah....OK, whatever. The tree is planted in it crooked to boot, and it's become a sort of living trash can more than art. We also have "art" that's bent pipes. Sheesh. I could get stoned and do better than that.

I see art every day. The way someone smiles, the sunset...all art to me.

 

[Jade]

You know what Creamy?
I find myself digesting on a relatively daily basis (during the academic year that is) the "opinions," for better or worse of my instructors and then reiterating the same crap back out on tests and writing essays on it, as if the words somehow carried my own philosohpy somehow.
Do they though... NO.. or.. rarely!

I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how many tizzies I got into with my superiors (you know.. all this "questioning" stuff... oooh they sure don't like that do they!) until I realized... it was not going to get me anywhere!
So finally, I cried, then cried some more and then I sucked it all up, accepted the bearocracy of education today, sat in the front row, and told them what they wanted to hear.

All that matters to me is that I learn something by maintaining my own free thought and while "demonstrating" to my "betters" that I have listened and understood "their" side/point, etc. Eventually, I hope to have a chance to have my own voice be heard, and perhaps they for once will shut up, but until then, they can say what they want, but they can't make me "believe."

 

[Silverlily]

CL, I'm sorry you got a teacher like that. Whether he was right, wrong, or otherwise (he's wrong) for a teacher to squash a student's enthusiasm is unforgivable.

Most of the art I like is all ancient, Egyptian, Chinese, cave paintings, that sort of thing, so no, it doesn't matter if the artist is alive.

Dead art?! Well yeah, if you're talking about Tut's death mask. What an idiot. Create on and leave the fool behind. (Years from now at the grand opening for CL's exhibit at the Guggenhiem, former teacher tries to take credit and gets pelted with tomatoes from Literoticans.)

 

[Isabella Thorne]

Art lives on!

Miss Creamy .. my father was an artist .. he is dead now .. but he still communicates with me everytime i look at one of his paintings ..

besides my father .. my favourites are the Impressionists .. especially Van Gogh ..

Dead artists? yes.

Dead art???? inconceivable!

 

[Whispersecret]

April, you know, my trip to the Louvre was really disappointing because I was there with other college students who were far more interested in shopping than art. I was hustled around and didn't feel comfortable hanging around by myself. (Good thing too, later some guy groped me in the Metro.) It WAS amazing, though to see the art I'd studied in my art history courses in person. I'd see some painting and recognize it and get this thrill. I'd love to go back someday and spend a couple of days there. After I'd filled my soul with that, I'd go and empty my wallet in the shops! (Unless my itinerary included Italy, in which case, I'd save my money for there.)

Saying that art ceases to be art if the artist takes money for it is absurd. Art has a very established history of being commissioned (except the cups and furniture and stuff from the ancient peoples which was functional then and considered art now.) The Doges of Venice, the Pharoahs of Egypt...many many people have paid for art, and the fact that the artist got paid and didn't starve to death doesn't negate the fact that what they created is art. <scoffs> How ridiculous that you could think that.