How broad is your definition of art?

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ThisAdamGuy
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18 May 2017, 3:24 pm

shlaifu wrote:
so. the defining feature of food is edibility. a shoe is inedible? there's a video on youtube: werner herzog eats his shoe. also: leather is actually nutritious and is being eaten in times of famine(cook it first).
so you don't like the food, and the restaurant probably won't survive. I'm not sure what your argument here is.


So, if you went to a restaurant, any restaurant at all, and they insisted that you eat a shoe, you would do it just because, in some very rare, extreme circumstances, people CAN eat shoes? You wouldn't be upset at all that you didn't get whatever it was you ordered, and instead received a shoe? And were then required to PAY for said shoe? What you're doing right now is taking something that is clearly wrong (and don't pretend like you don't think it is, you know it's wrong) and making excuses for it. Same with the "art" you're talking about. I think that, deep down, you know what you're arguing for is utter nonsense, but you won't admit it and so you keep making more and more excuses. Sure, it's perfectly reasonable for a chef to tell you to eat a shoe because [insert bullcrap excuses here].

shlaifu wrote:
the nose in the museum is good art- so is a measure of quality, whether it took time and effort to make?so, if my 4 year old nephew who has little skill or training happens to draw an impressive drawing of... something- but it only took him half an hour- does that mean, it's bad art- it didn't take him long, and he hasn't spent years in training, so it was effortless.

The nose in the museum is good because you look at it, and it looks like a freaking nose. Obviously, time and effort went into making it. And unless your head is even further up your own artistic butthole than I thought, you're not going to take your 4 year old nephew's drawing and say it belongs in a museum, no matter how long it took him to draw it. The issue isn't how long it took them, necessarily, it's how much effort obviously did or did not go into making it. And more often than not, effort takes time. If your best "art" can be created in a half hour, maybe you should take a step back and look at it with a critical eye, rather than immediately pat yourself on the back and say "Imma gud artist."

shlaifu wrote:
so the rock in the hole is not art, because you could do it yourself without training. so - art needs to be something you can't do without training?

Yeah, pretty much. Even if you're training yourself, your best art should never be something that anybody off the street can perfectly replicate. If it was, what's the point of coming to a museum if I could do literally everything I saw all by myself? I'd save gas and money. My writing is self-taught, but it took me years until it got to the point where it was of good enough quality to show to other people. These "artists" you're talking about have no artistic skill, they just create nonsense and then shame anyone who doesn't agree with them.

I'll tell you why modern art is so popular: because as long as you set your own standards, you can safely ignore and and all criticism you receive. What could possibly be more attractive to all the egotistical, easily offended snowflakes in the world? You make, you congratulate yourself, and you close yourself off from any input that would actually help you create something worthwhile.


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seaweed
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18 May 2017, 3:40 pm

ThisAdamGuy wrote:
You wouldn't be upset at all that you didn't get whatever it was you ordered, and instead received a shoe?

so you want artists to serve you art that you like? wow dude.

you can choose not to eat the shoe. you don't have to pay for the shoe.

ThisAdamGuy wrote:
Even if you're training yourself, your best art should never be something that anybody off the street can perfectly replicate. If it was, what's the point of coming to a museum if I could do literally everything I saw all by myself?

but you didn't think of it, or do it, or somehow sell a can of s**t for its weight in gold. they did.



jrjones9933
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18 May 2017, 3:58 pm

I feel happy that Bill responded to my question about Joyce, but I wanted to hear the opinions of our self-published author about literature, art, and Finnegan's Wake.


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ThisAdamGuy
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18 May 2017, 4:05 pm

seaweed wrote:
ThisAdamGuy wrote:
You wouldn't be upset at all that you didn't get whatever it was you ordered, and instead received a shoe?

so you want artists to serve you art that you like? wow dude.

you can choose not to eat the shoe. you don't have to pay for the shoe.


The fact that you're still pretending that it's okay for a restaurant to serve shoes is the perfect example of what's wrong with your entire mindset.

Look at it this way: I can tell good art from bad just like I can tell good food from bad. If I go to some foreign restaurant, there's not a guarantee that I'll like what they give me. That doesn't mean it's bad food, it just means that it was too spicy, or too salty, or had ingredients in it that I don't like. I pay for the meal and leave. Same with art. Just because I don't necessarily like it doesn't mean it's bad art.

But if a restaurant gave me a shoe, that's just wrong. There is no defense for this, it's disgusting, unsanitary, and the chef should be fired and never given work in a restaurant again. A shoe isn't bad food, it isn't food at all. Screw what the chef wants his customers to think, it would be unacceptable for a restaurant to serve their patrons shoes. Refusing to eat the shoe doesn't mean that you aren't open minded or whatever, it just means you have the common sense not to eat a freaking show. Same with art. There's good art, bad art, and then things that just art at all. Today's "modern art" is not art, it's trash.


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shlaifu
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18 May 2017, 4:14 pm

ThisAdamGuy wrote:
shlaifu wrote:
so. the defining feature of food is edibility. a shoe is inedible? there's a video on youtube: werner herzog eats his shoe. also: leather is actually nutritious and is being eaten in times of famine(cook it first).
so you don't like the food, and the restaurant probably won't survive. I'm not sure what your argument here is.


So, if you went to a restaurant, any restaurant at all, and they insisted that you eat a shoe, you would do it just because, in some very rare, extreme circumstances, people CAN eat shoes? You wouldn't be upset at all that you didn't get whatever it was you ordered, and instead received a shoe? And were then required to PAY for said shoe? What you're doing right now is taking something that is clearly wrong (and don't pretend like you don't think it is, you know it's wrong) and making excuses for it. Same with the "art" you're talking about. I think that, deep down, you know what you're arguing for is utter nonsense, but you won't admit it and so you keep making more and more excuses. Sure, it's perfectly reasonable for a chef to tell you to eat a shoe because [insert bullcrap excuses here].

pffh. no. I would have read about the experience of eating a shoe, and decided whether I would want to make that experience. - more often than not, stuff sounds too boring too go see.
but frankly- I'm giving you the license to leave the restaurant, and I give myself the same license. You're argumet is that while I give you the license to leave, I do not grant it to myself.
and for a reason I don't understand, you are upset about that.


shlaifu wrote:
the nose in the museum is good art- so is a measure of quality, whether it took time and effort to make?so, if my 4 year old nephew who has little skill or training happens to draw an impressive drawing of... something- but it only took him half an hour- does that mean, it's bad art- it didn't take him long, and he hasn't spent years in training, so it was effortless.

The nose in the museum is good because you look at it, and it looks like a freaking nose. Obviously, time and effort went into making it. And unless your head is even further up your own artistic butthole than I thought, you're not going to take your 4 year old nephew's drawing and say it belongs in a museum, no matter how long it took him to draw it. The issue isn't how long it took them, necessarily, it's how much effort obviously did or did not go into making it. And more often than not, effort takes time. If your best "art" can be created in a half hour, maybe you should take a step back and look at it with a critical eye, rather than immediately pat yourself on the back and say "Imma gud artist."

shlaifu wrote:
so the rock in the hole is not art, because you could do it yourself without training. so - art needs to be something you can't do without training?

Yeah, pretty much. Even if you're training yourself, your best art should never be something that anybody off the street can perfectly replicate. If it was, what's the point of coming to a museum if I could do literally everything I saw all by myself? I'd save gas and money. My writing is self-taught, but it took me years until it got to the point where it was of good enough quality to show to other people. These "artists" you're talking about have no artistic skill, they just create nonsense and then shame anyone who doesn't agree with them.

I'll tell you why modern art is so popular: because as long as you set your own standards, you can safely ignore and and all criticism you receive. What could possibly be more attractive to all the egotistical, easily offended snowflakes in the world? You make, you congratulate yourself, and you close yourself off from any input that would actually help you create something worthwhile.


so, art=effort?
and finally: so the artist does something you don't like, but he does, by his own standards. fine. don't buy it.
if it's not good enough for anyone but his own standards, well, he better not quit his day job.

I don't get your problem. Don't go to a museum if it angers you that the artwork is measured to a standard you don't accept.


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shlaifu
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18 May 2017, 4:14 pm

ThisAdamGuy wrote:
seaweed wrote:
ThisAdamGuy wrote:
You wouldn't be upset at all that you didn't get whatever it was you ordered, and instead received a shoe?

so you want artists to serve you art that you like? wow dude.

you can choose not to eat the shoe. you don't have to pay for the shoe.


The fact that you're still pretending that it's okay for a restaurant to serve shoes is the perfect example of what's wrong with your entire mindset.

Look at it this way: I can tell good art from bad just like I can tell good food from bad. If I go to some foreign restaurant, there's not a guarantee that I'll like what they give me. That doesn't mean it's bad food, it just means that it was too spicy, or too salty, or had ingredients in it that I don't like. I pay for the meal and leave. Same with art. Just because I don't necessarily like it doesn't mean it's bad art.

But if a restaurant gave me a shoe, that's just wrong. There is no defense for this, it's disgusting, unsanitary, and the chef should be fired and never given work in a restaurant again. A shoe isn't bad food, it isn't food at all. Screw what the chef wants his customers to think, it would be unacceptable for a restaurant to serve their patrons shoes. Refusing to eat the shoe doesn't mean that you aren't open minded or whatever, it just means you have the common sense not to eat a freaking show. Same with art. There's good art, bad art, and then things that just art at all. Today's "modern art" is not art, it's trash.


unlike non-food, bad art doesn't harm you... so.... leave the museum!


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18 May 2017, 4:32 pm

shlaifu wrote:
so, art=effort?

Effort + Actual skill (not "personal meaning") = Art. Look at the crap in museums that they're calling art, and tell me that any effort was put into it. Any at all. Like I said, I'm not an artist, and I could make the stuff they're displaying in there in half an hour, at most. That's not art.

shlaifu wrote:
I don't get your problem. Don't go to a museum if it angers you that the artwork is measured to a standard you don't accept.

It's the fact that people's standards are so low these days that bugs me. The fact that Twilight, 50 Shades, and the like are all so freaking popular bugs me too. People will swallow whatever the "artist" tells them to because of a mixture of having nothing better, and because they're afraid of hurting the "artist's" feelings. And in the meantime, actual artists aren't getting the respect and recognition they deserve because museums are being filled with bowling balls in bird cages and kleenex that have been piled up in an "artistic" way.


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seaweed
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18 May 2017, 4:48 pm

ThisAdamGuy wrote:
The fact that you're still pretending that it's okay for a restaurant to serve shoes is the perfect example of what's wrong with your entire mindset.


the shoe analogy makes no sense. i'm not pretending anything you're saying makes sense.



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18 May 2017, 5:04 pm

ThisAdamGuy wrote:
shlaifu wrote:
so, art=effort?

Effort + Actual skill (not "personal meaning") = Art. Look at the crap in museums that they're calling art, and tell me that any effort was put into it. Any at all. Like I said, I'm not an artist, and I could make the stuff they're displaying in there in half an hour, at most. That's not art.

well, for the last century and a half, the effort went into the intellectual part. into the thinking, coming up with it, developin
g a personal meaning to put into.

shlaifu wrote:
I don't get your problem. Don't go to a museum if it angers you that the artwork is measured to a standard you don't accept.

It's the fact that people's standards are so low these days that bugs me. The fact that Twilight, 50 Shades, and the like are all so freaking popular bugs me too. People will swallow whatever the "artist" tells them to because of a mixture of having nothing better, and because they're afraid of hurting the "artist's" feelings. And in the meantime, actual artists aren't getting the respect and recognition they deserve because museums are being filled with bowling balls in bird cages and kleenex that have been piled up in an "artistic" way.


you're mixing things here though- the high-brow art, whee the artist supposedly tells the audience whatever he wants- but, you forget, there's a few factors here: there's galleries, agencies and collectors. If an artist ends up in a museum, quite a few people who deal with art on a daily basis agreed to put this in a musuem. the ten-thousands of starving artists screaming to the world about how great they are while waiting tables- it's not so much about what the artist wants his art to be- it's finding an audience. that's not an easy job.
and: in the museum setting, people don't tell each other to the face that they suck. in any setting that's... civilized these days, no one tells the other that they suck. HOWEVER the museum buyer just won't take the piece, the gallerist and the curator won't show it. the artist has to learn for himself when to quit following his dreams.

people will tell you your writing is great, but won't find time to tead it. rejections always end with "please send us any work you do in the future". they still won't publish your writing. it is a rejection.
sometimes, you'll be just ignored.
no one will ever tell you, to your face, or write you an answer-letter: "we have read your book in its entirety, but we think it sucks".
not going to happen.
after a few years, the rejected author will maybe get the message. or not. from the publisher's point of view: who cares?

regarding low-brow culture: well, it'd need interest in structure and quality and so on - education- but if you overdo it withe education, you end up with people enjoying modern art.
so.
you're upset about people not liking the same things, not being on the same level between high and low brow art that you are on. guess what.
so am I.
we're just on different levels. but getting angry at either direction of the spectrum is a bit pointless.


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27 May 2017, 9:40 am

Let's back up a bit and take another angle: Death to Art!

"I get very worried about this idea of art. Having been an English Literature graduate, I've been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity." -Douglas Adams.

More than the other arts, the visual arts are stuck with this heavily loaded but ambiguous idea of Art (with a capital A). It's a heavily contested idea, too- art is supposed to have some kind of special, intrinsic worth, but we have long arguments about, basically, whether the worth lies in the artist's intention or the viewer's reaction. (See above!) And about whether or not there's a quality bar or style bar below which something can't be considered "Art"- which begs the question, what IS it then?

I think Douglas Adams might've been right to shun the word. So many artists end up chasing the chimera of Artistic Significance instead of trusting their own judgement. Even in the avant-garde end of things, it may be healthier to say "I make installations from junk!" than "I'm an artist!"

(I quit composing classical music for several years, mainly because I was tying myself in knots about what it was OK to write. The answer always seemed to be "something I don't like." Moved sideways into songwriting: a humbler art form where we don't worry about such things. Suddenly I was far happier and more produtive, and the music I created was better too!)


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27 May 2017, 9:41 pm

^I can get behind this idea

I'm here, being called idiotic because of the art I like, and worse being told that I only like it because someone told me I should like it. All those fighting words because some guy had a problem with people calling things art. It never mattered. If they call it the Stedelijk no art here Museum I'd still go. Kill art, if you want to, and let people display what they like.


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27 May 2017, 10:12 pm

jrjones9933 wrote:
I'm here, being called idiotic because of the art I like, and worse being told that I only like it because someone told me I should like it.


Please, victimize yourself some more. I never told you you had to agree with me, I merely told you I don't agree with you. I didn't make you keep coming back here to argue with me. If anything, the fact that you did speaks to some insecurity in you that makes me think you actually agree with me, but can't get down from your "artistic" high horse to admit it.


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28 May 2017, 12:18 pm

ThisAdamGuy wrote:
I'm not an artist. I'm an author. The only person my rant above applies to is you, and any other idiots who think the crap you've been talking about can actually be called art.

Here.

ThisAdamGuy wrote:
Do you people not hear yourselves? You literally just said that trash can be art if someone tells you it's art. That is complete and total bull crap. Some guy in the 70s told you that everyone's an artist, so of course it must be true, or else all these pretentious little hipsters will get their feelings hurt when they crap on a canvas and someone with more than two brain cells tells them to put it in the trash where it belongs. Just because someone "makes" it doesn't mean it's art, and you know, I think the fact that people are actually making excuses for these pathetic brainless morons is a great example of the degradation of modern society. Crap like Fifty Shades of Gray makes people millionaires, and worthless trash like what you people have been presenting to me actually gets passed off as art. Why? Because people will get their feelings hurt if they're (truthfully) told that they have no talent. Effort and education have been thrown out the window because they're just too darn hard. It's so much easier to just throw something together with no thought put into it and get lauded as some amazingly creative genius. It also comes with the benefit of pretentiously ignoring the opinions of intelligent people because "they just don't get me."

Seriously, people. You make me ashamed to be part of the human race.

And here.

You don't read your own posts?

Your emotional outbursts seem to correspond to your inability to control a situation which is not yours to control. That's a good definition of infantile behavior. It also explains the lack of self-awareness. It's more curious than hurtful, but don't deny behavior that's on the record.

I maintain that this discussion is really about philosophical or political divides, inasmuch as we can call it a discussion.


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28 May 2017, 12:31 pm

Yes, you came onto my thread and disputed my opinion. I argued back in my favor, and called you an idiot for having an opinion that is, frankly, idiotic. Never told you you had to agree with me, I simply argued against your opinion, and in favor of my own. If you're happy with your opinion and calling garbage art, more power to you. But don't come onto my thread, tell me I'm wrong, then play the victim when I argue back. All you're doing is proving me right: the attraction of modern art is that the "artists" think they are above criticism and disagreement, which are things you're obviously not used to receiving.


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28 May 2017, 12:42 pm

Also, the direction of this thread lies outside your sphere of control. You want to imply that I asked for it?


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28 May 2017, 12:57 pm

jrjones9933 wrote:
Also, the direction of this thread lies outside your sphere of control. You want to imply that I asked for it?

Yes. You presented your opinion, I presented mine. You pushed your opinion, I pushed mine. Your opinions became increasingly stupid, I pointed that out. You continued to push your opinion, I continued to do the same. Unless, of course, you expected me to roll over and give up as soon as you made it clear you didn't agree with me... which wouldn't surprise me, given the way you're now whining about how I'm arguing with you.


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