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Author Topic: Collecting Art  (Read 10667 times)

KLaban

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #40 on: November 24, 2017, 12:47:06 pm »

I would, Keith, but being subjective it would soon become political, and you know where that would lead.

But I know it when I read, hear, see, smell, taste or run my fingers over it... we didn't get three leading senses for nothing, you know! They keep the world going round.

Rob

And that's the problem, almost everything here is subjective or a matter of semantics.

Of course, as an artist I have my own subjective opinion, but it remains as just that, and an opinion of no particular importance.

http://www.tate.org.uk/search?type=artwork&aid=1244

Pete Berry

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #41 on: November 24, 2017, 02:35:12 pm »

And that's the problem, almost everything here is subjective or a matter of semantics.

Of course, as an artist I have my own subjective opinion, but it remains as just that, and an opinion of no particular importance.

http://www.tate.org.uk/search?type=artwork&aid=1244

This may be the time to consult Alexander McCall Smith's unforgettable Professor Herr Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld at Germany's Institute of Romantic Philology, renowned of late for his for his ground-breaking treatise "Irregular Portuguese Verbs". But his competence lies far beyond that, with his new-found global fame bringing him to such disparate locals as Oxford, and Columbia. South America where he briefly became President through his heroic role in a burgeoning revolution "At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances".

His wisdom was revealed when he slipped out of the country in the dark of night soon after discovering that the average Columbian President's lifespan was an appallingly short three months. I can think of no more apt, courageous mediator to help sort the semantics here!
« Last Edit: November 24, 2017, 02:38:19 pm by Pete Berry »
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KLaban

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #42 on: November 24, 2017, 03:51:31 pm »

This may be the time to consult Alexander McCall Smith's unforgettable Professor Herr Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld at Germany's Institute of Romantic Philology, renowned of late for his for his ground-breaking treatise "Irregular Portuguese Verbs". But his competence lies far beyond that, with his new-found global fame bringing him to such disparate locals as Oxford, and Columbia. South America where he briefly became President through his heroic role in a burgeoning revolution "At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances".

His wisdom was revealed when he slipped out of the country in the dark of night soon after discovering that the average Columbian President's lifespan was an appallingly short three months. I can think of no more apt, courageous mediator to help sort the semantics here!

Can you imagine the hoo-ha over the selection process for an adjudicator here on LuLa?

 ;)

Farmer

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #43 on: November 24, 2017, 04:10:05 pm »

Art is largely subjective (of course there are objective aspects regarding technique, for example), but in terms of artistic value it's almost entirely subjective.  A couple of my most recently acquired artworks are from Nano Lopez (a couple of bronze Nanimals and associated "design prints"), Tim Yanke (a lithographic dragonfly), Slava Ilyayev (impressionist oil on canvas with brush, palette knife, brush), and Daniel Wall (intense impressionist, oil on canvas with a palette knife), and Donna Sharam (expressionist sublimated print on metal).  All very different (even if the two impressionists fall into the same broad genre category).

We bought them because we like them and they hang or sit amongst other artworks, including inkjet prints of photos which I absolutely consider art - art in the vision of the shot, the composition, the lighting, the technical choices of shutter speed, ISO, aperture, and then the processing in Ps and the choice of substrate to print and so on.  How is it less artistic to start with a photograph rather than a lump of clay or piece of canvas?  All of them are bent to the will of the artist to represent something.  Are all photos art?  No.  But if the intent of the photographer is to create art, who are we to say it isn't?  We can say we don't like it, or that we think it's not very good - of course we can do that.  But is a Nanimal, which can take 6 months to make, or an Ilyayev which can take a year because his technique requires drying of the paint for each layer before the next, more art than a canvas or a photo/photo-edit which take less time?  Seems like an odd measure of artistic value - the effort involved.  If someone is more talented, they may well require less effort than someone else - are they less of an artist?  No way.

I'd wager that if we polled the users on this forum, a lot (most?) wouldn't like all of the art I bought most recently and mention above - some might even not like any of it, and perhaps one or two might enjoy it all.  But the only people I'd say were wrong are those who might claim that some of it isn't art because it doesn't meet their definition.  In all cases, the creators intended to create art, just as with the photos on my walls, too.

"the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination".  If you think photos can't contain those aspects, then I have to wonder why you would ever take a photo!
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Phil Brown

Pete Berry

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #44 on: November 24, 2017, 05:35:18 pm »

Art is largely subjective (of course there are objective aspects regarding technique, for example), but in terms of artistic value it's almost entirely subjective.  A couple of my most recently acquired artworks are from Nano Lopez (a couple of bronze Nanimals and associated "design prints"), Tim Yanke (a lithographic dragonfly), Slava Ilyayev (impressionist oil on canvas with brush, palette knife, brush), and Daniel Wall (intense impressionist, oil on canvas with a palette knife), and Donna Sharam (expressionist sublimated print on metal).  All very different (even if the two impressionists fall into the same broad genre category).

We bought them because we like them and they hang or sit amongst other artworks, including inkjet prints of photos which I absolutely consider art - art in the vision of the shot, the composition, the lighting, the technical choices of shutter speed, ISO, aperture, and then the processing in Ps and the choice of substrate to print and so on.  How is it less artistic to start with a photograph rather than a lump of clay or piece of canvas?  All of them are bent to the will of the artist to represent something.  Are all photos art?  No.  But if the intent of the photographer is to create art, who are we to say it isn't?  We can say we don't like it, or that we think it's not very good - of course we can do that.  But is a Nanimal, which can take 6 months to make, or an Ilyayev which can take a year because his technique requires drying of the paint for each layer before the next, more art than a canvas or a photo/photo-edit which take less time?  Seems like an odd measure of artistic value - the effort involved.  If someone is more talented, they may well require less effort than someone else - are they less of an artist?  No way.

I'd wager that if we polled the users on this forum, a lot (most?) wouldn't like all of the art I bought most recently and mention above - some might even not like any of it, and perhaps one or two might enjoy it all.  But the only people I'd say were wrong are those who might claim that some of it isn't art because it doesn't meet their definition.  In all cases, the creators intended to create art, just as with the photos on my walls, too.

"the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination".  If you think photos can't contain those aspects, then I have to wonder why you would ever take a photo!

Below, my "lump of clay" and final result: a single shot at med tele range through the cyan-tinted windows of a Rangoon trolley, a couple of years ago, but only lately worked into the current iteration. I saw the vaguely threatening contrast between a vulnerable young woman and the darker head in front, and my vision was to enhance the sense of danger by tight cropping, tone and color manipulation, while trying for the "bloom of youth" in her softened image. Edward Hopper came to mind while I was working...but I am no Hopper!

« Last Edit: November 24, 2017, 06:32:08 pm by Pete Berry »
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Farmer

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #45 on: November 24, 2017, 10:17:21 pm »

A good example of what I'm talking about, and definitely art!  You had artistic intent when you took the shot and you applied imagination and creativity to get to where it is now, which is an image that evokes emotion and interest and consideration.  I can't see how anyone could say it's not art.
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Phil Brown

Rob C

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #46 on: November 25, 2017, 04:18:24 am »

Can you imagine the hoo-ha over the selection process for an adjudicator here on LuLa?

 ;)

Not a problem: the precedent was set in the Coffee Corner via self-nomination, followed by desperate sense of resignation from another, overarching stucture level... chore sub-contracting, if you will.

;-)

Rob

Rob C

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #47 on: November 25, 2017, 04:53:08 am »

This may be the time to consult Alexander McCall Smith's unforgettable Professor Herr Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld at Germany's Institute of Romantic Philology, renowned of late for his for his ground-breaking treatise "Irregular Portuguese Verbs". But his competence lies far beyond that, with his new-found global fame bringing him to such disparate locals as Oxford, and Columbia. South America where he briefly became President through his heroic role in a burgeoning revolution "At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances".

His wisdom was revealed when he slipped out of the country in the dark of night soon after discovering that the average Columbian President's lifespan was an appallingly short three months. I can think of no more apt, courageous mediator to help sort the semantics here!

Basically, I don't believe it's semantics at all: it's gut reaction and refusal to equate aspìration to art with its achievement, the real deal. Perhaps all of us have the desire to be abe to be creators, to produce some manifestation of art. It's painful to be denied.

It strikes me as a particulary modern trend, this: nobody can fail, everybody has equal talents, rights and expectations of greatness.

Until the advent of Swingin' London and the overload of imagery everywhere I, as a working professional photographer, had never met a fellow working pro who considered himself an "artist". We were either good at what we did and held our jobs, or we sucked, and discovered the employment exchange.

Like today's feminism, a popular perversion of what that word signifies, the rest of the world was fed, and took aboard, wholesale, US campus-inspired nonsense about gender equality, perversions of that, communism's credo of all things for all people, regardless of their abilities and even desires, one might conclude: consider the happy housewife condemned by her virulent sisters for not giving up family to slave in some goddam office instead. What we saw, if we kept our peepers open, was that self-determination and inner knowledge of ourselves was no longer valid: one had to subscribe to the new idea of superhuman capabilities apparently resident in us all, a belief that everyone was as capable of everthing as anyone else. Nobody had ever been that good, so the belief was bound to failure and the perpetuation of inner discontent due to dreaming the impossible dream.

It might be that this modern idea of what we are comes from too much affluence, too much leisure time to fill and the natural discontent with self that comes from realising that, really, there's not much there inside us when work and its needs are removed. I sense a sort of climaxing conceit in western mankind, a belief that we are almost gods, and that that damned Sun is but a waxy flap beyond.

Rob

KLaban

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #48 on: November 25, 2017, 05:21:15 am »

Rob, I fear you're putting art on a pedestal and as something only the few can achieve. Fair enough, but that is your subjective opinion. Other folk, myself included, would have differing subjective opinions. Thankfully there will never be a definitive definition, which leaves us free to waste our time in pointless circular debate.

;-)

Rob C

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #49 on: November 25, 2017, 07:23:40 am »

Rob, I fear you're putting art on a pedestal and as something only the few can achieve. Fair enough, but that is your subjective opinion. Other folk, myself included, would have differing subjective opinions. Thankfully there will never be a definitive definition, which leaves us free to waste our time in pointless circular debate.

;-)


But Keith, I do put it up on the highest of pedestals! It's why I admire those who have the gift so very much.

Rob

KLaban

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #50 on: November 25, 2017, 08:33:52 am »


But Keith, I do put it up on the highest of pedestals! It's why I admire those who have the gift so very much.

Rob

Rob, rather than put it up on the highest pedestal I reserve that place for those people I see as deserving of the view. The vast majority of what I see described as art is piss poor and thoroughly undeserving.

Rob C

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #51 on: November 25, 2017, 01:02:00 pm »

Rob, rather than put it up on the highest pedestal I reserve that place for those people I see as deserving of the view. The vast majority of what I see described as art is piss poor and thoroughly undeserving.


No argument there! Yes, of course it's the people who make said art that deserve the view.

That vast majority of piss-poor "art" is where the semantic troubles begin. I find it impossible to look upon it as art, only as rubbish, and it's producer's pretensions in the same way. It's really why I agree with Sieff's dictum that there is no art, only artists. Which of course, is what my old tin drum has been banging out for days. Photography has a handful of artists (IMO, of course) who have made remarkable pictures, but in line with Sieff's observation, and giving it a further twist, that doesn't make the pictures art - it makes them great photographs. For me, the missing element is the manual dexterity: it's a machine that does the heavy lifting and so many are happy to think that if it's in focus, covers a zillion tones, then it's a great photograph.

Perhaps that's a thing that musicians have going for them: if they can walk into a room, sit down and make the place bounce, to me, that's talent and decidedly an art. On the other hand, as if to prove that even this litmus test is flawed, what about the concert situation, where the fat lady sings in theatrical Italian and my wish is to escape? Even as others may rise to their feet and clap for more?

And to think: musicians have nothing to show you unless they depend upon stagecraft, which they can't hit you with on the air - it's the music cuts it, or nothing. So yeah, I think it's talent that deserves the respect.

Rob

Farmer

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #52 on: November 25, 2017, 03:19:07 pm »

It strikes me as a particulary modern trend, this: nobody can fail, everybody has equal talents, rights and expectations of greatness.

I don't think it's the same by any means.

If your art is poor, you have less talent than someone who makes good art, and you will not be great and they may be.  There's no attempt to say all art is the same or that by qualifying it as art it is rarified and perfect.  A car is a car.  Some are better than others, but all are cars.  You're making art pretentious and denying it to all but a few who you think worthy.
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Phil Brown

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #53 on: November 25, 2017, 03:59:45 pm »

There are photographers whose work resonates with me and IMO deserves to be called “art.” That’s really all I have to say on the subject.  :)

I don’t take photos with any aspiration towards art. I do it to heighten my observing & discerning abilities, because I like to notice and be aware of things around me as I go through the day. Taking photos helps me keep myself sharp & aware, even sans camera. Of course, being a technogeek at heart, I also enjoy playing with the tools. It’s all fun and I have fun doing it. That’s enough.

I’ve found over the past couple years, concerning both photography and music, that younger folks are where it’s at. They’re not saddled with all our useless baggage. It’s fresh and new for them, and they respond to things as they are. As we once did before we became full of ourselves. IMO nostalgia is ultimately a fool’s endeavor. Time passes, things change. Today’s norms become tomorrow’s “What were they thinking?!” Today’s summit becomes tomorrow’s trench, and vice versa. And so it goes ‘til the universe runs outta juice. You and I will soon be forgotten, as we should.

-Dave-
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Rob C

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #54 on: November 25, 2017, 05:00:59 pm »

I don't think it's the same by any means.

If your art is poor, you have less talent than someone who makes good art, and you will not be great and they may be.  There's no attempt to say all art is the same or that by qualifying it as art it is rarified and perfect.  A car is a car.  Some are better than others, but all are cars. You're making art pretentious and denying it to all but a few who you think worthy.

Certainly not.

There need be nothing pretentious about art beyond artists' statements! (Or worse, their agent's.)

The few I think worthy; now there's a thought indeed... how come I can think of so many images that I think never could be worthy of anything at all beyond the generic title of photograph?

Like I said, before the late 50s - early 60s nowhere that I know of, outwith the US, thought photography art and/or exhibited it outwith camera clubs which probably didn't think it art either, just good or bad photography.

As suggested earlier, it strikes me as a particularly American thing to elevate almost anything to a higher level of hype than it naturally deserves or comfortably fits. Photography is one such victim, where a simple job or hobby has become messed up with all manner of nonsense to confuse, and otherwise cloud reality to the greater good of profit and commerce. And man, let's not forget ego!

I really am surprised at the idea of my denying somebody something; it's neither within my gift to give that credibilty nor to deny it; the reality is that the work is never more than a mechanically produced artifact: a photograph. Born of a camera, it bears that provenance forever. The best you can hope is that some guy with an artistic soul gets his hands on it and creates something interesting from what the camera captured. That is challenge enough, don't you think? And no, I'm not saying the camera makes the image; I'm saying the camera records. The same camera, in different hands, will do different things either better or worse.

Where the problem in just being a great or even simply a competent photographer? Why must so many crave being called artists? That, of itself, is relatively new: was a time artists were considered inferior to most tradesmen. I can give you a real life example: mine. When I moved to join my final school, I had already wanted to be a painter and, as a kid, was actually relatively good at drawing and watercolours. At the interview, when asked to state my subject preferences, art was first along with English. Unfortunately, the head honcho told my parental superior that that was silly, that I had the marks from the previous school to do much better than that, because art was a subject for those academically too poor to do "better" subjects. I think that was one of the biggest decisions ever made for me... Naturally, I didn't get to follow my love; apparently, it, art, was beneath me. Really? Funny how I devoted the rest of my post-scholastic life doing an ersatz version of it!

I have no problem living with the title photographer. Good photographer is better, and amazing would be really cool. Artist? Only in my dreams. Unfortunately, those gradings only matter within the client circle. Your wife or mother telling you you are wonderful cuts no mustard.

The best deal? Be a happy photographer, just doing what you wanna do. Leave the boxes for others who have nothing better to worry about than which one they may be thought to be inside. It's probably uncomfortably cramped in there, and be subject to violent disruptions you really can live without.

;-)

Rob

farbschlurf

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #55 on: November 26, 2017, 04:08:15 am »

I don't understand either why some seem to be kind of obsessed to get that label "art" for their work (or even themselves).

I read a lot. This literature, both regarding "what is art" in general and  "is this art" in a more particular view is enormous. Sometimes I find it entertaining to read about what others think about it and I get some new ideas out of it. But rather in a more philosophically sense. For myself I found it's rather inhibiting if I think of my work as art. Which probably shows, I'm too a victim of that myth (!), that art is something great and big, reserved for a few blessed. Anyway taking the "art" out of my mind and work did help a lot.

Also, I don't think one can "make art". Things (as you know, pretty much anything) _become_ art, in retrospect. It's a reception thing. So I don't think it's useful at all to think one can "create art". You just can't. If you put efforts into this, it's rather a marketing thing. Which might even work. But than the label "art" is rather just a buzzword like others. Maybe "art" really is only the key-buzzword for all the art-market.

So I agree, why not just stick to "photography"? It's much more fun.

All that said I agree, "collecting art" is a good thing. I just would call my own practice "collect pictures". And this is not just about ownership, but about looking at pictures. Only what you have in your mind is what you own. Having a comprehensive internal gallery in ones brain is a key for me. It need's to be refreshed and extended every now and than, that's where the actual pictures are needed. But basically it's all about what you remember and might got reminded of, when seeing and looking at the world. This is an exiting journey!
« Last Edit: November 26, 2017, 04:44:39 am by farbschlurf »
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Rob C

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #56 on: November 26, 2017, 05:14:32 am »

The place where I'd differ in the above is about consciously creating art in the moment.

I think most great painters did/do it every painting. It's right back to talent and ability. I can't imagine Bacon or Dali ever doing anything else but create pieces of eight art.

Unfortunately, I can't extend that faith to the latter day Picasso.

Rob

KLaban

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #57 on: November 26, 2017, 06:35:42 am »

As an artist I'd be very suspicious about anyone setting out to consciously create art. Certainly I always set out to produce work and left others to worry over whether the resulting works were or were not art.

Moving on, I believe it is a conceit for anyone to confuse their own subjective opinion with fact.

Rob C

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #58 on: November 26, 2017, 07:11:00 am »

As an artist I'd be very suspicious about anyone setting out to consciously create art. Certainly I always set out to produce work and left others to worry over whether the resulting works were or were not art.

Moving on, I believe it is a conceit for anyone to confuse their own subjective opinion with fact.


This latter is true; however, someone has to have the courage of his convictions or we'd never get anywhere.

Seems we never do, regardless of conviction, so maybe that long walk in the wilderness is a good idea.

KLaban

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Re: Collecting Art
« Reply #59 on: November 27, 2017, 05:18:52 am »

There are photographers whose work resonates with me and IMO deserves to be called “art.” That’s really all I have to say on the subject.  :)

I don’t take photos with any aspiration towards art. I do it to heighten my observing & discerning abilities, because I like to notice and be aware of things around me as I go through the day. Taking photos helps me keep myself sharp & aware, even sans camera. Of course, being a technogeek at heart, I also enjoy playing with the tools. It’s all fun and I have fun doing it. That’s enough.

I’ve found over the past couple years, concerning both photography and music, that younger folks are where it’s at. They’re not saddled with all our useless baggage. It’s fresh and new for them, and they respond to things as they are. As we once did before we became full of ourselves. IMO nostalgia is ultimately a fool’s endeavor. Time passes, things change. Today’s norms become tomorrow’s “What were they thinking?!” Today’s summit becomes tomorrow’s trench, and vice versa. And so it goes ‘til the universe runs outta juice. You and I will soon be forgotten, as we should.

-Dave-

Ne'er a truer word.
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