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Author Topic: Is it art? Wrong question?  (Read 37732 times)

Tim Gray

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Is it art? Wrong question?
« on: April 01, 2006, 11:00:47 am »

I think the discussion of the question "is it art or not art" misses the mark.  Even if there were concensus as to what constitutes art, the question "so what" still remains.  If we were to discern that something is art, what would we know that we didn't know before?

I've been enjoying the daily critiques at the Radiant Vista http://www.radiantvista.com/dailyCritique/index.php for the past several months.

What I like about Tanner's approach is that it implies a relatively objective standard of "goodness".  Basically - the longer the viewer is held by the image, the better the image.  His critiques focus to a great extent on what causes the viewer to be drawn out of the image, and what could be done to keep the viewer's attention within the image longer.  I suppose this approach would work for any visual media - installations, painting, sculpture, architecture etc.

I suggest that the right question isn't "is it art", but rather "is it effective in holding one's attention."  

Any thoughts?
« Last Edit: April 01, 2006, 11:03:29 am by Tim Gray »
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kbolin

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« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2006, 11:42:47 am »

I couldn't agree more.... What may not be art one day to an individual may be art later in ones live.  The ability to draw one into the image and have them thinking, contemplating, wondering about the event, scenery, place, time more adequately describes the purpose of why I engage in this hobby.

I took a shot of a girl in Barcelona on a subway a few years ago... photojournalistic style you could say (from the hip).  Is it art?  I don't think so... but it certainly draws my attention into the image and think... "Where is she at?  Where is she going? .. to school... from school.  What about the guy standing on the platform outside the subway?  

[attachment=386:attachment]

Or the next image with the cross mounted on the bottom of the tree.  What happened?  Someones pet?  Or a memorial to a loved one?

[attachment=387:attachment]

I'll look at these types of images any day vs. the long strokes of a paint brush gone wild that someone calls art.  Different strokes for different folks I guess.


Kelly
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russell a

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Is it art? Wrong question?
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2006, 02:33:23 pm »

Consider, if you will, other motivations why someone looks long and/or often and/or hard at an image:  1) a deceased/missing/separated loved one, 2) an image of sexual fetishism,  3)  it is displayed where one is frequently gazing (i.e. on the wall behind the toilet (for males) or on the wall just next to the toilet (for females) (BTW, this is the place where I prefer to have my works hung for that very reason).

There are undoubtedly others, but one cannot seriously claim these as a necessary indicator of quality of any kind.  Trust me, the quest for a qualitative measure (the engineer's approach) is a futile one.  But don't give up on it for just that reason.
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Tim Gray

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Is it art? Wrong question?
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2006, 02:51:13 pm »

Quote
Consider, if you will, other motivations why someone looks long and/or often and/or hard at an image:  1) a deceased/missing/separated loved one, 2) an image of sexual fetishism,  3)  it is displayed where one is frequently gazing (i.e. on the wall behind the toilet (for males) or on the wall just next to the toilet (for females) (BTW, this is the place where I prefer to have my works hung for that very reason).

There are undoubtedly others, but one cannot seriously claim these as a necessary indicator of quality of any kind.  Trust me, the quest for a qualitative measure (the engineer's approach) is a futile one.  But don't give up on it for just that reason.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=61515\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It still works.  A "good" image of a deceased/missing/separated loved one will engage the viewer longer than a "poor" image.   So I seriously do claim....
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russell a

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Is it art? Wrong question?
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2006, 04:15:27 pm »

Tim:  What a trooper you are!  What wonderful assumptions you make!  We'd better send off the specifications for an experiment to the gang in forensics.
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svein-frode

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« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2006, 07:21:53 am »

The problem with discussing art is often:

A. The people discussing it don't know anything about it, except for what they have made up from their own imagination.

B. The people caliming to know what Art is often make the follwing assumptions:  
     
       1. Art is something beautiful or skillfully craftet
       2. Art is something to be instantly enjoyed and understood
       3. Art isn't something that could be made by my three-year old.


The fact that something is labeled Art is what makes all the difference, hence the need to understand what Art is and isn't. Art is an abstraction, hence it is meaningless to discuss it as if one could make a simple definition of it. Art isn't science, it is culture, hence constantly developing and changing from the inside and outside.
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Sheldon N

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« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2006, 12:12:32 pm »

I think the difficulty with the "Is it art" question hinges on the fact that without knowing the photographer's intent, you cannot really make that decision. What is a simple vacation snapshot from one photographer may be a social commentary on the consumeristic approach of the average American family from another photographer. Both photos may look the same, but one is "art" and another is just fodder for the family album.

I prefer to think of photos more in terms of the "goodness" factor. Holding one's attention is a key component to me, but a lot of time that is subject matter more so than photographic prowess. I think my person litmus test for a good photograph is whether it 1) Engages me and 2) Communicates something to me (hopefully it communicates what the photographer intended).
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free1000

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Is it art? Wrong question?
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2006, 12:31:32 pm »

Quote
The problem with discussing art is often:

A. The people discussing it don't know anything about it, except for what they have made up from their own imagination.

B. The people caliming to know what Art is often make the follwing assumptions: 
     
       1. Art is something beautiful or skillfully craftet
       2. Art is something to be instantly enjoyed and understood
       3. Art isn't something that could be made by my three-year old.
The fact that something is labeled Art is what makes all the difference, hence the need to understand what Art is and isn't. Art is an abstraction, hence it is meaningless to discuss it as if one could make a simple definition of it. Art isn't science, it is culture, hence constantly developing and changing from the inside and outside.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

too right...

Its one of life great mysteries why people in general, not just photographers, feel that they can have a valid view of art when they have never studied it. The same people wouldn't for a moment have the bravado to pontificate on the meaning of nuclear physics without first trying to study it or read about it. Yet, the literature relating to art theory and art history is today as deep and rich as that of any field of intellectual enquiry.

We have to keep in mind that the two most popular artists in the UK today are Rolf Harris

[a href=\"http://www.rolfharris.com/art/paintings1.htm]http://www.rolfharris.com/art/paintings1.htm[/url]

and Joe Vettriano.

https://secure.westend-gallery.co.uk/weg-ca...o?categoryId=27

There are some wonderful books about photography and art and its a shame people don't read them.  As a start everyone who is interested should read Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes.
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alainbriot

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Is it art? Wrong question?
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2006, 02:20:25 pm »

Quote
I suggest that the right question isn't "is it art", but rather "is it effective in holding one's attention." 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=61500\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Holding the viewer's attention is certainly a very important aspect of a good photograph. One that is not addressed often enough.  There's so many ways one can lose attention when looking at images.  There is also the issue of images with an unsustained powerful initial pull.  Then there are images that grow on the viewer if enough attention is placed upon examining the photograph.  The images of Duane Michael come to mind.  The first time I saw them, I walked by them one by one.  I then went through the entire exhibit again (it was a the Palais de Tokyo in Paris) and it took me a long time until  I found my way into Duane's work.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2006, 02:23:28 pm by alainbriot »
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emma_g

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Is it art? Wrong question?
« Reply #9 on: September 27, 2006, 09:11:03 pm »

I was drawn to this discussion by Tim's original post. I keep wondering why people with a desire to create images worry so much about defining what art is. A component of this is of necessity economic, which is driven by the "art" industry arising from cultural necessities to conduct commerce. Having acqired a piece of paper which states I am a "Master" of Fine Arts, and having maintained 20+years of self employment from a financial acknowledgement of the perceived value of said degree, I find myself in no better position to define what art is than before.
 
Tim's comment about engaging a viewer's attention strongly engaged mine. For myself personally, I would have substituted "attention" with "focus" and I would include myself as interchangeable with the viewer. I believe art can be created without a viewer outside one's self. The engagement of focus in self must occur within, for the work to be manifested in visual form. I also believe that the greater that engagement of focus, the more likely the potential to engage others. Increasing the "depth" of focus often coresponds to an icrease in response.

It might be more usefulf to talk about the concept of engagement in terms of either active or passive when it comes to response. Art is afterall an experience we are trying to quantify. The skills I learned in art school were intended to aid that quantification, when applied actively. But they cannot guarantee it. Although such skills are certainly useful, they are not mandatory to engaging focus. (We often judgementally label unskilled active engagement as "primitive"in relation to art.)

Separating a simple, yet conclusive definition for "art" from all the  numerous categorical venues that apply the term is not possible when such venues have vested interests in maintaing their own limiting definitions. Beauty, will (and I think should) remain in the eye of the beholder.
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Rob C

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« Reply #10 on: September 28, 2006, 03:55:15 pm »

Quote
I was drawn to this discussion by Tim's original post. I keep wondering why people with a desire to create images worry so much about defining what art is. A component of this is of necessity economic, which is driven by the "art" industry arising from cultural necessities to conduct commerce. Having acqired a piece of paper which states I am a "Master" of Fine Arts, and having maintained 20+years of self employment from a financial acknowledgement of the perceived value of said degree, I find myself in no better position to define what art is than before.
 
Tim's comment about engaging a viewer's attention strongly engaged mine. For myself personally, I would have substituted "attention" with "focus" and I would include myself as interchangeable with the viewer. I believe art can be created without a viewer outside one's self. The engagement of focus in self must occur within, for the work to be manifested in visual form. I also believe that the greater that engagement of focus, the more likely the potential to engage others. Increasing the "depth" of focus often coresponds to an icrease in response.

It might be more usefulf to talk about the concept of engagement in terms of either active or passive when it comes to response. Art is afterall an experience we are trying to quantify. The skills I learned in art school were intended to aid that quantification, when applied actively. But they cannot guarantee it. Although such skills are certainly useful, they are not mandatory to engaging focus. (We often judgementally label unskilled active engagement as "primitive"in relation to art.)

Separating a simple, yet conclusive definition for "art" from all the  numerous categorical venues that apply the term is not possible when such venues have vested interests in maintaing their own limiting definitions. Beauty, will (and I think should) remain in the eye of the beholder.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=78048\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Emma

The trouble with engagement as an arbiter of whether something is art is a somewhat dangerous one to support: think about the Tate's wonderous bricks of some years ago; think of Miss Emin's unmade bed and even of those poor, sad creatures in formaldehyde. Eye-catching, passage-stopping (in the non-personal sense) but art?

Ciao - Rob C

Tim Gray

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Is it art? Wrong question?
« Reply #11 on: September 28, 2006, 06:05:46 pm »

Quote
Emma

The trouble with engagement as an arbiter of whether something is art is a somewhat dangerous one to support: think about the Tate's wonderous bricks of some years ago; think of Miss Emin's unmade bed and even of those poor, sad creatures in formaldehyde. Eye-catching, passage-stopping (in the non-personal sense) but art?

Ciao - Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=78180\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well, to a large extent my point is I don't care whether it's art or not.  I personally don't find art/not art a productive debate.  In the field of photography (and perhaps some other areas eg painting, sculpture and architecture etc) what I care about is engagement.  __Maybe__ engagement isn't the best context in performance or installation art, but I don't care about those genres - my context is photography.    And based on that, when a photograph is presented for criticism or analysis I don't ask "is it art?", but rather measure how long am I pursuaded by the image to stay with it (and not necessarily just in the first instance of viewing, but over time - as per Alain Briot's point) - and how that degree of engagement is accomplished.
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emma_g

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« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2006, 04:01:34 am »

Personally, again, I have to agree with Tim. Whether something is or is not art is unimportant to me.   The debate over how to define art has gone on for centuries, and the definition has been redefined by each generation of artists.  I have never had a client ask me to make some art. Nor have I ever set out personally to do so. Something engages me as inspiration. The stronger that engagement, the more I feel the need to persue it as an inspiration. I seek out what I feel connected to by this engagement.
Just after art school, I had the opportunity to study with both a master Chinese calligrapher, and a Japanese sculptor. I learned a great deal about the aesthetics of these two cultures first had. Calligraphy and pottery are both considered higher forms of art in these cultures. Even though the technical concerns of these aesthetic, like composition, were very different from my western training, the idea of engagement both for artist and viewer is central in both. And both differentiate between active and passive engagement.
Commerially, we are barraged each day with attempts to engage us. Television, radio, newspapers, the internet etc. We accept at least some of this engagement on a passive level as distraction from more active engagement. Because these are passive, we tend not to even ask whether or not they are art. When one does engage us more actively, we might even be surprised. It is only fairly recently in western art history that the category Design has been inducted to the art aena. Design is like the poor unsophisticated relation to fine art at the moment. But photography was considered a lesser art to painting for a long time as well. In many peoples minds it still is. Technolgy has always filtered very slowly into acceptance as legitimate media.
A few years ago, painter David Hockney wrote a very subversive analysis of the work of Leonardo Da Vinci and several other great painters and proposed the idea that they employed a camera obscura to project their intial drawings onto their canvases. Art historians were outraged. Yet reading the letters and notebooks of Leonardo, I firmly believe he would have taken full creative advantage of any technology if it opened new avenues of engagement. And I doubt if he'd have questioned whether or not it was art.
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KSH

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« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2006, 12:53:29 pm »

Quote
too right...

Its one of life great mysteries why people in general, not just photographers, feel that they can have a valid view of art when they have never studied it. The same people wouldn't for a moment have the bravado to pontificate on the meaning of nuclear physics without first trying to study it or read about it. Yet, the literature relating to art theory and art history is today as deep and rich as that of any field of intellectual enquiry.

We have to keep in mind that the two most popular artists in the UK today are Rolf Harris

http://www.rolfharris.com/art/paintings1.htm

and Joe Vettriano.

https://secure.westend-gallery.co.uk/weg-ca...o?categoryId=27

There are some wonderful books about photography and art and its a shame people don't read them.  As a start everyone who is interested should read Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=77485\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

So, if I read a great many books about art theory and art history, I will be allowed to have a view of art? And maybe even a valid one, no less? To think that I had the bravado to pontificate on the meaning of art before! Now, if you could point me to the books I will have to read to elevate my invalid view to a valid one, I would appreciate it.

Sorry, couldn't resist!  

Karsten
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Rob C

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« Reply #14 on: September 29, 2006, 04:53:03 pm »

Quote
Personally, again, I have to agree with Tim. Whether something is or is not art is unimportant to me.   The debate over how to define art has gone on for centuries, and the definition has been redefined by each generation of artists.  I have never had a client ask me to make some art. Nor have I ever set out personally to do so. Something engages me as inspiration. The stronger that engagement, the more I feel the need to persue it as an inspiration. I seek out what I feel connected to by this engagement.
Just after art school, I had the opportunity to study with both a master Chinese calligrapher, and a Japanese sculptor. I learned a great deal about the aesthetics of these two cultures first had. Calligraphy and pottery are both considered higher forms of art in these cultures. Even though the technical concerns of these aesthetic, like composition, were very different from my western training, the idea of engagement both for artist and viewer is central in both. And both differentiate between active and passive engagement.
Commerially, we are barraged each day with attempts to engage us. Television, radio, newspapers, the internet etc. We accept at least some of this engagement on a passive level as distraction from more active engagement. Because these are passive, we tend not to even ask whether or not they are art. When one does engage us more actively, we might even be surprised. It is only fairly recently in western art history that the category Design has been inducted to the art aena. Design is like the poor unsophisticated relation to fine art at the moment. But photography was considered a lesser art to painting for a long time as well. In many peoples minds it still is. Technolgy has always filtered very slowly into acceptance as legitimate media.
A few years ago, painter David Hockney wrote a very subversive analysis of the work of Leonardo Da Vinci and several other great painters and proposed the idea that they employed a camera obscura to project their intial drawings onto their canvases. Art historians were outraged. Yet reading the letters and notebooks of Leonardo, I firmly believe he would have taken full creative advantage of any technology if it opened new avenues of engagement. And I doubt if he'd have questioned whether or not it was art.
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Emma

I think that we are slightly off at tangents, the two of us. You were writing about engagement, if I remember correctly, as being almost a definition or at least an essential ingredient to something being or not being considerable as art.

Now, I bother to post here because I am 'engaged' by your writing. That means that I like the way you do it, that I find you literate, eloquent and a pleasure to read because, as a bonus, you also appear to know your field. So far so good, but that engagement does not mean that I consider your writing art. For that to happen, you would have to apply it in the form of a book or some such work which would give it a recognizable format which would enable it to be seen in a context which would legitimise it as art.

Rob C

emma_g

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« Reply #15 on: September 29, 2006, 07:01:10 pm »

Rob C

I was not purposely trying to propose a definition for art. I was acknowledging rather that Tim's statements on engagement seemed to be the same criteria I apply in valuing my own responses toward creative expression in general and the response that expression can produce in an individual.
Recognizing the commonality of components in an experience is part of what makes an experience engaging on a personal level for me. Sitting in a museum in the afternoon, I can be engaged by watching the people walking past paintings or photographs, either without looking at them, or frozen before a single work as if soaking it into their pores. And I have done the same thing myself. What engages me? I want to understand that in the hope of filtering it into my own work.
I found Tim's statement about the purposeless nature of debating art ringing true to me. If we had a conclusive definition and that definition conclusively excluded us on a personal level, would we cease to take photos or paint?
You raised a good point about legitmacy. I think it is the pursuit of legitimacy which is the source of the debate. Precedence in history is an arbiter of legitimacy. (Ironically, the forum of debate was considered an art form by Greco-Roman culture). The trouble with standards of legitamacy is that they hinder, at least for a time, the evolution of new approaches and ideas and narrow the realm of possibility.  The application of a "definitive" standard has not proven a valid approach in any field of human endeavor thus far. Why should there be such a standard in "art"?
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Geoff Wittig

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« Reply #16 on: September 30, 2006, 09:52:51 am »

I think that art has a lot in common with other areas of human behavior; there is a broad spectrum of activity with a solid center bracketed by ludicrous extremes. On one hand you have formulaic kitsch that resonates with the visually illiterate masses, but nauseates viewers with any degree of artistic judgment or taste. (free1000 gives wonderful examples). On the other you have the smug, self-indulgent, deliberately opaque or intentionally offensive stuff that passes for art, most often found in the vicinity of Universities.
Tom Wolfe wrote a heart-felt elegy for sculptor Frederick Hart in which he convincingly argued for the role of actual skill and craft in the creation of art. Wolfe was disparaged and ridiculed for this by the art school crowd, which ironically proved his point.
To my mind Ansel Adams personifies the solid center, with beautifully crafted and thoroughly accessible work that is certainly art. From there you can go to either extreme- from babies in bumblebee costumes at one end to incomprehensible blurred photos of trash at the other.
Just my rant.
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Rob C

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« Reply #17 on: September 30, 2006, 04:23:48 pm »

Quote
I think that art has a lot in common with other areas of human behavior; there is a broad spectrum of activity with a solid center bracketed by ludicrous extremes. On one hand you have formulaic kitsch that resonates with the visually illiterate masses, but nauseates viewers with any degree of artistic judgment or taste. (free1000 gives wonderful examples). On the other you have the smug, self-indulgent, deliberately opaque or intentionally offensive stuff that passes for art, most often found in the vicinity of Universities.
Tom Wolfe wrote a heart-felt elegy for sculptor Frederick Hart in which he convincingly argued for the role of actual skill and craft in the creation of art. Wolfe was disparaged and ridiculed for this by the art school crowd, which ironically proved his point.
To my mind Ansel Adams personifies the solid center, with beautifully crafted and thoroughly accessible work that is certainly art. From there you can go to either extreme- from babies in bumblebee costumes at one end to incomprehensible blurred photos of trash at the other.
Just my rant.
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Geoff

Yes, you are probably right - no, you are right. The perpetuation of this nonsense is seen in almost any 'artist's statement' that is appended to collections of pictures in either internet sites or magazines catering to, mainly, black and white photography enthusiasts.

For pity's sake - the picture either makes you want to go and shell out your few hundred bucks or you just move along to the next window and look there. Or does it? Perhaps such blandishments are really required in the effort to shift merchandise.

Your mention of babies in bumblebee costumes brought to mind my neighbours whose daughter was given a photo-shoot as a present; the catch was that after the shoot she was responsible for picking and paying for the prints. Well, the job represented (to me) the very worst of photography in the public domain: the session consisted of numerous exposures of her three kids in all manner of 'action' poses; these were later blended with skate-boards and such crap and presented as composites. Apart from the fact that the young mother was actually impressed, the full horror of the pitch was to be seen in the prints, so high-key that there was no skin tone at all. The cost of the numerous prints she was ordering was verging on two thousand pounds until the mother's dad stepped in and suggested she take a grip on reality; fond grandparent or not, the older eye can spot a con when that amount of dosh is concerned!

So, yes, not quite the art world I guess, but not a million miles away in ethics.

Cheers - Rob C
« Last Edit: September 30, 2006, 04:25:53 pm by Rob C »
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emma_g

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« Reply #18 on: September 30, 2006, 09:40:10 pm »

Tim certainly provoked engagement in dialogue in starting this thread! Interestingly enough the phrase "so what" seems to have gotten bypassed by our individual passions. So would I be wrong to infer that passion is a component of art?
I must admit I too have difficulty with babies as bumble bees or dogs as Little Red Riding Hood.  My photographic experience is less than many of the people who contribute here. Though I was passionate about B&W photography thoughout art school and several years beyond,  I only recently began shooting photographs again , after 20 years. Having made the transition from hard media painting to digital work out of commercial necessites, the return to photography in digital format meshed well with my current circumstances. I have always admired landscape photographers because I personally found it difficult to capture those elusive moments I admired with any degree of satisfaction.  I whole heartedly agree with Geoff about  Anselm Adams as being an example of a "centered" artist. I purchased an original print of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico in 1972. I love the photo as much today as I did when I first saw it. That single print took me on an almost magical journey through the poetry of tonal variations possible in black and white photography.
I purchased only one other original photograph two decades later. This one would be more controversial: Man with Dog, by Joel Peter Witkin. I might be sticking my neck out here, but I feel he is also an extremely centered photographer, but considerably more difficult to approach subject wise.
In both cases, what I perceived as the skill of the photographer was an important component of my response. I personally am more engaged by work that appears to be skillfully executed. I might infer from this that for me art needs to be skillfully executed. But the degree to which that skillfullness is apparanent is a variable I cannot always quantify. Being a painter, I am more sentive to sublte nuances in this media. I know how hard it is (or not) to achieve certain qualities of brush stroke, certain nuances of shading etc. These perceptions evolve over time and may change dramatically. Alain Briot metioned this as a component of art for him.

I find myself smiling in agreement with several of Geoff's other statements. Once upon a time, I was one of those smug students brandishing her portfolio as a body of work. In defense I would add that art school is for learning and part of learning is testing the boundaries of what we learn. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes.
Art has always co-existed with a commercial component, for better or worse. The number of venues for visual expression has expanded phenomenally, as have the venues that exist in symbiosis to art. Ocassionally symbiotic becomes parasitic. The issue of ethics reaches deeply into all human interaction, of which art is only one variation. Sheldon raised the idea of knowing intention as an entrance to understanding. I don't completely believe this to be necessary in relation to discussing"What is Art", though it migh prove helpful in marginal instances. In discussions of ethics however it would seem to be essential.

Tim's original point was, I think, to question how our attention is engaged, and if we understand how,  to then effectively increase the depth of engagement so we might make our own work more meaningful for ourselves and others.
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Tim Gray

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Is it art? Wrong question?
« Reply #19 on: October 01, 2006, 09:10:21 am »

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Tim's original point was, I think, to question how our attention is engaged, and if we understand how,  to then effectively increase the depth of engagement so we might make our own work more meaningful for ourselves and others.
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Yes, precisely, thank you!
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