# Is it art or crap?



## midphase (May 2, 2012)

I ran across this blog which I think states very succinctly how I have felt from time to time when exposed to "some" art, particularly the more modern type.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/im-sick- ... nt-get-art

There is a great documentary on the subject called Exit Through the Gift Shop which shines a bright light on exactly the same topic, if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to see it...it's not what you think it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHJBdDSTbLw

I have from time to time found myself staring at...something...that I was told was art, only with puzzlement as to how this person managed to convince so many people that their genius needed to be shown in a museum. Some would say that something that evokes a strong emotion such as the rejection of a piece's artistic value, is indeed art...but I call bullshit. Art needs to do more than just anger its audience.

Another questionable character in art is Matthew Barney, although you can make the argument that at least he's putting in some effort!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xWtS9HsP4U


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## chimuelo (May 2, 2012)

My Dog creates better art when he takes a big crap in the snow, and patterns of steam rise up in very cool looking disappaiting clouds...


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## MacQ (May 2, 2012)

Kays, I just read that article elsewhere, and I completely agree. This isn't art, it's just bullshit. I saw a comment that went something like this: "Gallery owners with poor taste are perpetuating the problem. Just like broadcasters that put crap on television. If you display it, people will watch it. And if it's there long enough, people will start to confuse it with quality."

Honestly I think it's just an excuse for eccentric (weird) people to get wasted on vino while they wank about the nature of art.

~Stu


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## reddognoyz (May 2, 2012)

I have a good friend who threw away a Christo(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christo), which was a gift from Christo to another artist, Manasha Kadishman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menashe_Kadishman). Manasha made a decent size splash in the early eighties when he painted a bunch of sheep different colors and put them in a pen. 

My friend was hired as an assistant to Manasha because he was also an artist and he could really paint. in a series of paintings, my friend would paint a realistic picture of a sheep and Manasha would splash some paint on it.

Anyway my friend was cleaning up the studio and threw out a bunch of flowers that had been wrapped up in paper, wrapping things was Christo's clam to fame. When my friend found out he shrugged and said "hey if it didn't look like art to me, it wasn't.

Both Christo and Manasha have done amazing things in the art world, Christo claims that half of the art of what he does it getting the permits to allow him to do what he does. Manasha has created some truly awesome sculpture.

I will allow myself to wonder agape when art awes me... and to call it bullshit when it suits me to.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 2, 2012)

Ooh ooh ooh.

In the early '90s there was an episode of "The Critics" in Viz Comics that I wish I could dig up.

Apart from being relevant here, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen...


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 2, 2012)

I LOVED "Exit Through the Gift Shop."

Banksy is hilarious.

And don't tell anyone, but I really liked a lot of the art in the exhibit.


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## Frederick Russ (May 2, 2012)

So the poignant question is: what is art?


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## midphase (May 2, 2012)

Perhaps Dr. Who nailed it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmal0PMkmI


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## Ned Bouhalassa (May 2, 2012)

Anything that gets you to actually take the time to react, post and reply on a forum must be art.


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## Ed (May 2, 2012)

False choice. Just because its art doesnt mean it isnt crap . Kind of like something need not be funny to be considered comedy. Something need not be very musically interesting to be music.


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## midphase (May 2, 2012)

People tend to regard art and the creation of art as a sort of black magic, a voodoo that only a few initiates are privy to. I am not 100% sure it's that mysterious, I think that many accomplished artists will tell you that it's hard and regimented work that is not any different that working in an office.

Ultimately it comes down to perception. The perception of the public, of art critics, of gallery owners, of museum curators.

The same is true in our industry, perception is king (yes, I know I know...we've had the art vs. craft argument many times before), but it doesn't remove the fact that if one is perceived as an artistic composer, that perception will go far in carrying him or her to success (assuming then that the person in question is able to keep up with the demands of the job).

In music, recording "artists" tend to be more highly regarded as true artists than film composers. Once again...perception.

Maybe this is why so many big name film composers came from a recording artist background, it was easier for them to be perceived by Hollywood as true artists, and there are quite a few, guys like:

Danny Elfman
Trevor Rabin
Hans Zimmer
Cliff Martinez
Howard Shore
Clint Mansell
Trent Reznor
Charlie Clouser
...


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## Ned Bouhalassa (May 2, 2012)

True artists or Pop artists? I see a list of composers who were famous in Pop music not Art music.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 2, 2012)

> So the poignant question is: what is art?



Art is anything we decide is art. We learned that back in high school. 

That was also Andy Warhol's point back in the '60s, in fact it was what a lot of the 20th century was all about.

But as Ed says, whether something is crap is another question. 

(By the way Andy Warhol's stuff isn't crap in my opinion.)


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## midphase (May 2, 2012)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Wed May 02 said:


> True artists or Pop artists? I see a list of composers who were famous in Pop music not Art music.



Although one could make an argument that Oingo Boingo and Pop Will Eat Itself are more artsy than pop...I don't think it matters. The point I was trying to make is that there is a very strong perception among the Hollywood community that being a recording artists confers to one a credibility and artistic perception that is not equally extended to composers who strictly came up through the ranks of film work and nothing else.

A couple of other names that could be added to that list might be Philip Glass and Mark Isham, both recording artists before they began working on films.


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## JonFairhurst (May 2, 2012)

Does it have to be black and white, either or? Or can it be both?

There is the concept of "crappy art".


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## midphase (May 2, 2012)

If it's both I call it Poop Art!


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## snowleopard (May 2, 2012)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed May 02 said:


> That was also Andy Warhol's point back in the '60s, in fact it was what a lot of the 20th century was all about.



Reminds me of the Warhol quote: 

"Art, is a man's name."


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## Arbee (May 2, 2012)

People come into contact with "art" from so many different life experiences, personalities, intellects and values that "if it connects with them in some way" is IMHO probably as close as we can ever get to answering that age old question.

Probably not a good analogy but I was in Hawaii recently having a drink with my wife while listening to a duo who, to our ears, were horribly out of tune and TBH just plain dull and lifeless. We looked around to see a table of folk just going crazy for them and the songs they were singing (and this was before their alcohol kicked in).

Then of course there are the cultural differences between countries. In Oz for example (just my opinion), art in all its forms takes such a huge cultural back seat to sport :roll: (don't want to start a war here because Aust and NZ have produced some great talent!).

One of the best conversations I ever had on this topic years ago was that, if I were a tennis player, I'd know exactly how good I was by the people I could beat. No such luck in the arts


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## JonFairhurst (May 2, 2012)

Arbee,

I was in Melbourne last November and was blown away by the Melbourne Sport Centre in Albert Park. I had the pleasure of swimming laps (stay to the left!) in the outdoor 50m pool and then walking around the F1 track.

Yes, sport - and gambling - are more valued there than art or music. 

Heck, I walked all around Melbourne and never did find the famous Opera House.   

However, it was nice that the Queen stopped by the train station when I was there - and that Quantas started flying again before I had to leave!


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## Arbee (May 2, 2012)

Hey Jon, yes the Melbourne sports complex is awesome! The concert hall is also very good. You didn't miss the famous Opera house by much, only about 1,000km :wink: 

In my short visits to the US and Europe, I've found the difference in the arts focus quite striking compared with "back home".


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## Resoded (May 3, 2012)

This reminds me. Here in Sweden there was an art student who, with her final work for graduation, pretended to have a psychosis. She pretty much rampaged the street, got arrested by the police and resisted arrest, was brought to a hospital and wasted their time still pretending. When they eventually realized she was faking she was prosecuted for all of this. In the end she was sentenced to a fine of 380 usd.

As far as I'm concerned this is not art. For me art is always combined with talent and skill. I'd say there's a difference between painting the mona lisa and squirting a tube of paint on an unsuspecting duck. I'm sure creative people can find all sorts of hidden meaning in the masterpiece "paint on duck", and probably things I could never have imagined.

Though it seems that all you need to do is to find hidden meaning in things that have none, and that makes it art. I remember in my old school, I happily took a photo class hoping to learn how to take pictures. I was dead wrong. The point with the class was to stare at pictures and find hidden meanings. Sure, trees are nice, but when you start to see pathways to life decisions in a damn tree then I'm out of there.

The whole concept of art just implodes when suddenly everything and anything is art.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (May 3, 2012)

Marcel Duchamp's Urinoir has been art since the early 20th Century, whether you like it or not.


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## midphase (May 3, 2012)

There is a difference between Marcel Duchamp and someone like Tracy Emin IMHO.

Duchamp was making a statement that art is anything we want it to be, and can be found in ordinary objects. John Cage a few years later expressed the same thing in his music (and decades later so did Warhol).

However that was almost 100 years ago! That statement has been made, re-made, and made yet again...we get it.

So for an artist operating today, to simply put up some vases on a stand and call it art feels derivative at the very least, and lazy at the most...but ultimately it has a limited message and lack of what art should be doing in the first place which is to challenge our expectations and bring about new ideas.


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## Ed (May 3, 2012)

The problem with saying art has to show "talent and skill" to be defined as art is that you get into this subjective debate about what is and what isnt art. You may be able to have a picture of the Mona Lisa and say, thats art, by comparing it some of these modern art pieces seen in the OP's link. But even if you take away all "modern art" you end up with a similar problem.

People like the one in OP's link will make fun of modern art lovers who look at a piece and ascribe it intention and depth they don't feel it deserves. But here's the thing, even in works like Van Gogh's sunflowers or Da Vinci's Mona Lisa we do this as well. There are plenty of brilliant artists today that can draw or paint something far more technically brilliant than either of these. The only reason we ascribe more to these is because we know something about them. Even in fine art or what some would say is "proper art", there still exists the same nonsense projection that you'll find with modern art. That doesnt mean there isnt anything great about Van Gogh's sunflowers or Da Vinci's Mona Lisa but don't be convinced that this sillyness is confined only to the modern art world. 

The only rational thing to do is do what is done with the definition of music, the basic definition of music does not require skill or talent it says nothing about that. But once you start saying, drum and bass isnt really music, or dub step or garage music isnt really music (as some do) the definition just becomes meaningless at that point becuase how do you define music so it doesn't include those things but does include the things you do think qualify as music at the same time? Clearly people like the writer of the OP's link are using a different definition of art, but this is a subjective one that fits only what that person likes and as such doesnt actualy mean anything. If you just accept a basic definiton of art it all becomes clear and you can then have a real debate about how much skill and talent was required, to what extent it can be considered good and if the intention and depth ascribed to it is deserved.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (May 3, 2012)

Bang on, Ed.


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## Scrianinoff (May 3, 2012)

Art that I didn't 'get' could really aggravate me up to some years ago. I think most people understand the Emperor's new clothes story ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empero ... ew_Clothes ) and had several experiences like that in their personal and professional lives. Keeping up appearances, not wanting to hurt someone's feelings, kissing up to the boss or someone in power. 

Further, and closer to this 'getting' art thing, a lot of people are afraid to be the only one, or one of the dumb few that do NOT get it. That's why it took an unpretentious child to break the spell of hypocrisy.

Nowadays, if I do not 'get' art, I don't have a problem of saying it, or confessing it. Some people call me a cultural barbarian on such occasions. I don't mind. People who mind don't matter, and people who mind don't matter.

The only thing important to me about art nowadays is the art I do 'get'. Some art I might get in the future, like I suddenly was 'getting' Prokofiev and Stravinsky a few decades ago after years of not getting them. Some 'art' is not there for the 'getting', except for the charlatans to be getting something out of it. This, I believe, will never change. It's human nature.


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## Arbee (May 4, 2012)

I don't know why this post made me do this, just putting it out there o[])


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## Niah (May 5, 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmayC2AdkNw


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## Arbee (May 5, 2012)

Niah @ Sat May 05 said:


> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmayC2AdkNw


 :lol: o-[][]-o


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## EastWest Lurker (May 5, 2012)

Art is being able to imagine a creative task with the requisite skill to realize it.

Whether is is good art or crappy art then is subjective which is why I prefer to evaluate craft, because it is more empirical.

As Potter Stewart said about porn, in my mind when it comes to art "I know it when I see it". :lol:


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