What is art?

[Cavemonster]

I think that what you describe as needful, the context of a work, is one way of appreciating it. To view a piece in isolation of all these other factors which you feel are essential is another way.

The fact that you insist that your way is the only right way , and that the other is intrinsically flawed and deserving only of dismissal is a reflection of the futility of this sort of discussion.

Many others can argue quite cogently that an art work which is unable to stand on its own merits, without the bolstering effects of provenance or cultural rep. is fundamentally less deserving of respect.

If you encounter a sculpture while walking in a public park, and it captures your eye and makes you pause for a moment to contemplate it, is it less artistic because you know nothing of its maker? Does it become more artistic when you learn that it is by someone famous or infamous? Does it become less artistic if you discover that it was made by the vocational education class of P.S. 237?

If you know nothing of its provenance does it then become worthless?

I'm going to say that either or both are certainly worthy of consideration, but your insistence on exclusivity is not.

You misunderstand my point.
I'm not saying that one should view art in context, I'm saying that one can't help but do so.

When you see a sculpture placed in a park, you're already rolling in context. That's a piece that has been specifically placed to be seen there. What city are you in? A bronze cast of a stack of soap bars means something quite different in a park in the shadow of a soap factory than it does in a park just outside Auschwitz.

The name and reputation of the artist is simply one facet,

We all know who Jackson Pollock is. When we see one of his paintings, hung in a museum with a plaque, the context is being given to you on a silver platter. To ignore this takes a willful act, and an imaginitve act, since you can't "un-know something"

 

[quadraginta]

You misunderstand my point.
I'm not saying that one should view art in context, I'm saying that one can't help but do so.

I didn't misunderstand it. I just don't agree with it. Context is a moving target, and a fickle one. Certainly it has an effect. So does breakfast.

If there is intrinsic merit to a piece of art, then by your standards that merit is diminished by the absence of this context. I can understand that this may be true in some situations. I disagree that it must be true in all of them.

When you see a sculpture placed in a park, you're already rolling in context. That's a piece that has been specifically placed to be seen there. What city are you in? A bronze cast of a stack of soap bars means something quite different in a park in the shadow of a soap factory than it does in a park just outside Auschwitz.

How about this?


(Note: the two perpendicular faint black lines are an artifact of the Google Earth image assembly.)


Here's another view to provide some perspective.



The only context a passerby gets is that they are on top of a five story underground parking deck next to a lab building for an engineering school.

Art, or not-art?

The name and reputation of the artist is simply one facet,

We all know who Jackson Pollock is. When we see one of his paintings, hung in a museum with a plaque, the context is being given to you on a silver platter. To ignore this takes a willful act, and an imaginitve act, since you can't "un-know something"

So Jackson Pollack is a better artist in a gallery than he is on the wall of someone's house.

Got it. Popularity and public approbation = artistic merit.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

If those 90 minutes of video do, in fact, explain artistic principles, why didn't you post it sooner?

Umm... because NOW is when I'm finding someone in this thread saying that science can't explain artistic principles?

I mean not just in this thread but in all those other 'art isn't science' threads?

Because I also have a life? Because I don't dedicate my life to seek every single thread where that video could be posted?

I don't want to get mired in semantics - there are things in and of art that science can explain, I said so in the post you plucked a part from...perspective, pigment and pattern recognition, for example. But how does science 'answer' (from the same post, and from the title of this thread) "What is art?".

I wasn't addressing the "what is art" question. You said science can't explain "artistic principles" and that is what I replied to with that video.

Could you manage an answer in words, rather than imagining I'll watch a 90 min lecture? I wouldn't mind if you linked to words it might take me 90 mins to read, but I admit I'm hoping for something fairly succinct.

Could you just watch the video? I don't have time to give you a brief synthesis of all the things Ramachandran says relevant to synesthesia, pattern recognition and how all these neural processes are involved in human culture to create the concept of art.

Seriously, just find some time and watch it. It's a very interesting video and it helps explain how a lot of artists' brains are wired and how their individual way of interpreting/perceiving patterns help them shape their art.

 

[Cavemonster]

I didn't misunderstand it. I just don't agree with it. Context is a moving target, and a fickle one. Certainly it has an effect. So does breakfast.

If there is intrinsic merit to a piece of art, then by your standards that merit is diminished by the absence of this context.

No. There is no such thing as an absence of context. That's my point that you're missing. But if you somehow artificially can shield yourself from the overwhelming amount of information that wraps any piece, it wouldn't eliminate the merit, you'd simply be sheilding yourself from appreciating it.

How about this?

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_324434ccdc09c929ab.jpg[/qimg]
(Note: the two perpendicular faint black lines are an artifact of the Google Earth image assembly.)


Here's another view to provide some perspective.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_324434ccdc18f15663.jpg[/qimg]

The only context a passerby gets is that they are on top of a five story underground parking deck next to a lab building for an engineering school.

Art, or not-art?

Thank you for presenting a wonderful example of context. I'm not seeing the piece and I'm not getting any of the context.

What I am seeing are a couple low res images with artifacts completely yanked from context.

I can say that the low-res images embedded in a JREF forum posting aren't art, or at least aren't very good art. The thing itself? I can't say without actually experiencing it.

So Jackson Pollack is a better artist in a gallery than he is on the wall of someone's house.

Got it. Popularity and public approbation = artistic merit.

That doesn't even begin to approach having anything to do with what I'm saying.

 

[jiggeryqua]

Umm... because NOW is when I'm finding someone in this thread saying that science can't explain artistic principles? Because I also have a life? Because I don't dedicate my life to seek every single thread where that video could be posted?

Shh, it's alright, it's only the internet.

I wasn't addressing the "what is art" question. You said science can't explain "artistic principles" and that is what I replied to with that video.

Yes, I addressed that point when I said I didn't want to get mired in semantics and pointed out that you'd snipped something out of context. The context was 'artistic principles' being defined as something other than pattern recognition, pigments and perspective, for example (which science can explain), but rather the question "what is art?", which science cannot answer. If you weren't addressing the "what is art?" question it is because you wilfuly or ignorantly chose to get mired in semantics.

Could you just watch the video? I don't have time to give you a brief synthesis of all the things Ramachandran says relevant to synesthesia, pattern recognition and how all these neural processes are involved in human culture to create the concept of art.

And I don't have the time to watch 90 mins of video which probably (see previous point) isn't at all relevant. From glancing at it, I gather he has 7 principles (careful, let's not get mired in semantics...) Can you not simply list them? Do you know what they are? Do you understand what he's saying?

Do you understand what I'm saying? He talks of pattern recognition - and so did I (see that earlier point about you just picking a pointless fight rather than addressing the question, and choosing some isolated words of mine and pretending they don't have a context or clarification right where you found them). Does he answer the question "what is art?"? I mean in a scientific way, like "what is gravity?". Can you tell me, having watched those 90 mins of video (you did watch it?), the formula for art? Tell me one thing that every incidence of art is characterised by - I've got a shiny sixpence here that says I can show you art that doesn't have it.

Seriously, just find some time and watch it. It's a very interesting video and it helps explain how a lot of artists' brains are wired and how their individual way of interpreting/perceiving patterns help them shape their art.

So not related to the actual question or your substitute question at all, after all? Seriously, I'll not be watching it.

 

[oggiesnr]

There are two issues "What is art?" and "What will someone pay for a 'work of Art'?".

The answer to the first is complex, the answer to the second is a matter of public record and the bank balances of those involved.

Steve

 

[quadraginta]

No. There is no such thing as an absence of context. That's my point that you're missing. But if you somehow artificially can shield yourself from the overwhelming amount of information that wraps any piece, it wouldn't eliminate the merit, you'd simply be sheilding yourself from appreciating it.



Thank you for presenting a wonderful example of context. I'm not seeing the piece and I'm not getting any of the context.

What I am seeing are a couple low res images with artifacts completely yanked from context.

I can say that the low-res images embedded in a JREF forum posting aren't art, or at least aren't very good art. The thing itself? I can't say without actually experiencing it.


That doesn't even begin to approach having anything to do with what I'm saying.

Yeah, but ...

You're missing my point.

What context?

Or more properly, which context?

This is an aerial view of a brick paver plaza at NCSU's Monteith Engineering Research Center. (It was the Engineering Graduate Research Center when I was helping to build it.)

The University spent tens of thousands of dollars just for the design, by Jun Kaneko, a prominent ceramic and landscape artist. I was the field engineer for the general contractor and was responsible for seeing to it that the brick pavers were actually installed according to the drawing he made.

There is nothing there at the site which tells anyone anything about the work. It is a 24,000 sq. ft. brick paver plaza, next to a lab building and atop an underground parking deck. There are no plaques, no dedications, no descriptions of the meaning behind the work or its impetus. (At least there weren't to start with. This may have changed in the years since I was there.)

Nearly all of the people who experience this work do so merely as they walk over it. They have no other context to add to that experience. None of the background or attribution which you suggest are so critical.

People who were attached to the University, and sought out Mr. Kaneko to produce this work have an entirely different context, but that is a fairly limited group. (Here's an article which discusses that a bit. liquid_order.pdf)

I had to get it built. This involved many issues which are great stories in themselves, not least of which was that the drawings could not be executed as they were drawn. This provides an entirely different context once again.

Even the artist himself experienced the context as something of a malleable quality. The building facade overlooking the plaza is faced with corridors the length of the building. The upper floors are glazed with frit glass, a passive solar energy saving feature which involves faint horizontal lines of varied width ground into the upper portion of the panes.

When someone walks along those corridors the bounce of their walk combines with those lines and the zig-zag of the paver pattern to create a strobe-like effect seen in peripheral vision which is ... disconcerting, to say the least.

This was not something which was anticipated, and provides yet another context to the same piece of work. The layout of these corridors was intended to provide an overlook of the plaza space. This effect of the frit glass wasn't.

So many different contexts for so many different people, and the vast majority of them, to many decimal places of 99%, without even as much information as you got from the aerial perspective I showed you, which at least enabled a view of the total piece all at once (Whoops, there goes another one. Context, that is.)

Is one context right, and all the others wrong? Are the many daily passers-by robbed of proper appreciation because they lack the history and philosophy behind the work? Is the entire hundreds of thousands of dollars and many hundreds of man-hours spent building it wasted on all but a tiny few privy to the proper context?

What do you believe Jun Kaneko thinks about that?

 

[ThatSoundAgain]

Tell me one thing that every incidence of art is characterised by - I've got a shiny sixpence here that says I can show you art that doesn't have it.

It is presented as art. That is pretty much the only useful definition.

 

[Fnord]

1. "Art is art when it is presented as art."

2. "Religion is religion when it is presented as religion."

:: "Any sufficiently adept parody of art is indistinguishable from 'real' art."

I guess that explains Morris Dancing...

 

[jiggeryqua]

It is presented as art. That is pretty much the only useful definition.

'Outsider art'

Next.

ETA It occurs to me that at some point outsider art is 'presented' as art (though it wasn't made as 'art'). But that creates a tautology: 'art is...art'. No sixpence for that.

 

[Cavemonster]

Yeah, but ...

You're missing my point.

What context?

Or more properly, which context?

This is an aerial view of a brick paver plaza at NCSU's Monteith Engineering Research Center. (It was the Engineering Graduate Research Center when I was helping to build it.)

Really, you can't expect me to comment on a specific piece based solely on the description made by a person who has an obvious chip on his shoulder about it?

That's about the same as me asking you to comment on the food at a restaurant you've never been to based on my description including my negative thoughts about the chef.

 

[jiggeryqua]

Seriously, just find some time and watch it. It's a very interesting video and it helps explain how a lot of artists' brains are wired and how their individual way of interpreting/perceiving patterns help them shape their art.

2. "Religion is religion when it is presented as religion."

"Seriously, just find some time and read it. It's a very interesting book and it helps explain how yadda yadda yadda."

 

[jiggeryqua]

Really, you can't expect me to comment on a specific piece based solely on the description made by a person who has an obvious chip on his shoulder about it?

That's about the same as me asking you to comment on the food at a restaurant you've never been to based on my description including my negative thoughts about the chef.

Not that he can't adequately speak for himself, but he asked you to comment on the piece with very little context long before you saw a 'chip' that I don't see. More importantly, he asked you to comment on context, in light of the piece he showed you, but yeah, some people won't see your escape hatch for what it is.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Personally, I dislike modern art because of the conflict between viewer and creator. With other forms of art, I might come away with an emotion that the creator did not intend, but I can still see the intention. In fact, I rather like people who can play on this in their work.

With modern works like those posted earlier, I have no clue what was intended, and I personally don't have an emotional reaction. I have no idea how to go about finding what was intended, either.

I also dislike Jazz.

Of course, I'm not going to disparage their historical significance, or question the metaphysics of it all. Personally, I think these debates always end up conjuring definitions of art that are of little use outside of these debates .

 

[Cavemonster]

Not that he can't adequately speak for himself, but he asked you to comment on the piece with very little context long before you saw a 'chip' that I don't see. More importantly, he asked you to comment on context, in light of the piece he showed you,

But he didn't show me the piece. He gave me some blurry pictures of a huge sculpture and his description.

Again, I have experienced the piece as much as I would have experienced a bowl of soup from a blurry picture and description.

I have his assurance that there is no particular context, but that's his conclusion.

 

[quadraginta]

Really, you can't expect me to comment on a specific piece based solely on the description made by a person who has an obvious chip on his shoulder about it?

That's about the same as me asking you to comment on the food at a restaurant you've never been to based on my description including my negative thoughts about the chef.

What chip is that? I've always liked that plaza. I had a great time building it, enjoyed working with the artist ... a very reasonable and practical guy, relished the challenges of transforming what amounted to a few sketches into a finished product (you should try to provide and maintain layout for a landscape paver crew at +/- 0.02 ft. accuracy over 24,000sq.ft. on a two inch thick bed of sand), and always feel a great sense of accomplishment whenever I think about it.

I don't know where you dredged up this "chip on the shoulder" idea, but if your contexts are coming from the same place I begin to see what our disagreement is founded on.

You began this tangent by saying,

"There is no such thing as a piece's "own merit" divorced from the context in which we view it. We simply cannot pretend to view work in a vacuum."
​

I took no issue with that, but only because it is a 'gimme' statement. There is no way to disagree, because everything has some context.

But then you went on to say,

"The little description on the wall, the frame, the point in history a piece comes from. Those are all a part of our experience. Every little bit of information that is clear, and even those that require a bit of digging are part of what makes work interesting, part of what makes it mean what it means or feel how it feels. To suggest that there is some ideal purity in ignoring all this context is silly."
​

... and finished with,

"Context, including the maker of the work, is crucial."
​

I've given you an example of "art", real bona fide art commissioned from a recognized artist by an established art council, and yet the vast majority of people who view it have none of this context you insist is so indispensable, and were never expected to.

By your standards this piece of art is essentially wasted, except to an infinitesimal fraction of the people who see it, and would always have been, from its inception.

I think that this piece of work and many others are not only capable of being appreciated by themselves on their "own merit", but are, in fact, designed specifically for that. I have to wonder why this can't be true of any artwork.

I don't think it always is, of course. I think that artists' motives and intentions vary across a spectrum which ranges from the sort of dependency you describe, to the independence I have offered one example of, to art which isn't particularly intended by the artist to be viewed at all, under any circumstances or with any context, by anyone else, but is just a product of the artist's compulsion to create.

 

[Halfcentaur]

I think what it boils down to is that art is simply technique with an element of subtlety. I think people are making an error to elevate it and turn into something more esoteric and emotional.

 

[Cavemonster]

What chip is that?

I apologize if I was reading into your comment something that wasn't there, but it wasn't neccessary to my point. I can't talk much about a piece I've never seen, I can't deduce the context without being there.

QualiaSoup tells a story about a supposed ghost a friend of his saw on a visit to his house. The friend saw a lampshade moving and could think of no possible other explanation. In fact, the lampshade was made to move by a small fan on the floor out of eyesight.

If that friend who was so sure he saw a ghost had told his story to me, I would have no way of knowing that fan was there. It's an unusual place for a fan, hard to guess at. I could easily postulate it was something like that, but I can't analyze a ghost story second hand because the fan is not in the story. Likewise, you state there is no consistent informative context. I can't know what details matter, because your story insists there's no details that matter.

I can't point out the little fan in your story, because it isn't in your story, even if it is at the site.

By your standards this piece of art is essentially wasted, except to an infinitesimal fraction of the people who see it, and would always have been, from its inception.

I apologize if my phrasing has confused you. I do not mean to say that all patrons of artwork must know everything about it including artist and intent.

Now, as I said above, I can't describe the actual context of this piece any more than I can describe the taste of a bowl of soup from a picture, or pinpoint the location of a hidden fan not mentioned in a ghost story, but let me give it a shot at trying to point out some contextual cues that many people take for granted.

1) People know they're supposed to walk through it because it's placed on the path between a garage and a building. If it were placed on a hillside, it might be experienced visually from afar. If it were placed in the middle of a gallery surrounded by velvet ropes, people would walk all around it and look for specific meaning, if it were the floor of a shopping mall, most people would probably enjoy it as above average interior design.

2) Most people have experience walking on pavers of various sorts, these are eye catching because they follow a more complex and ambitious pattern than most pragmatic paving does.

From what I can see, I'd consider it to be in the realm of landscape architecture/ design. Which fits well under the broader umbrella of "art" but not usually under the more specific "fine arts" that I believe we're discussing in this thread. That distinction is normally reserved for work that, among other things, invites a viewer to stop and appreciate it and actively digest it. This piece, from the very little I know, does not seem to do that, and I'd wager that the majority who experience it regard it as decoration rather than a fine art piece. But, again, this is all in the realm of describing the taste of soup from a photo.

 

[Fnord]

I'm still waiting for a REAL artist to post.

 

[Halfcentaur]

What is a real artist? I am an illustrator and cartoonist for a living, as well as a photo reconstructer and retoucher and commercial graphic artist.