Well, being as the classical period was from roughly 1730-1800, then, well, no.
You actually answered, "I have no idea. Maybe most of the new compositions are coming out of the commercial sector, but, as far as I know...". When you said "I have no idea", I assumed that you were referring to whether new compositions were coming out of the private sector or not.
luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
The "New Wave of Asian Horror" seems to be doing remarkably well. Mostly Japanese and Korean, psychological and supernatural horror/thriller movies have become hugely popular. Not blockbusters, but a strong following among people who wouldn't normally watch foreign films. In some cases, the originals have proved more popular than the crappy American remakes that followed.
Interesting note, a substantial percentage of films in the '80s and '90s were remakes of French films. Films such as The Birdcage (La Cage aux Folles), The Man with One Red Shoe (The Tall Blonde Man with One Black Shoe), Three Men and a Baby (Three Men and a Cradle), and Point of No Return (La Femme Nikita). A few of these went on to become more popular in France than the originals were. The originals were arguably better, more complex films (in some cases, not all); but audiences generally preferred the frequently simplified (read: dumbed-down) American versions. Sophisticated humour and drama is not universally popular, and will generally only appeal to a small audience, regardless of where it's made. You might be surprised at just how many American films are re-worked French films.
That's the true reason for the difference between the wide success of American mainstream films, and the much more limited acceptance of others, US or not. Accessibility and universality. A highly simplified formula that doesn't require a lot of intellectual investment; and plays on universal themes and prejudices. The Hollywood system has learned to become masters at the art of manipulating emotional responses with a minimum of effort. To make people think that they've experienced something profound and intense, without difficult subtlety or nuance. Even American films (usually indie) that require the audience to think, that are subtle and satirical and complex, do crap in the box office, if they can even get shown there (instead of the art-house theatres). It has little to do with a cartel, the success of the Indie film industry shows that; but with the limited appeal that theatre owners simply don't want to bank on. They will play what they think will make them money. Sometimes they're wrong, and a big-budget film will tank, or an Indie film will soar; but more often than not, the odds work in their favour.
George Lucas will always have much more popular appeal than Truffaut or Antonioni at their most accessible. The New Wave of Asian Horror does so well because it scares people; something which is easy to do, and doesn't require a lot of intellectual investment, even with subtitles. It's mostly lighting, sound, tone, and visual tricks. Something that is universal to all cultures.
luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
So what about the offensive stereotypes of Americans in Titanic? Do they appeal to the rest of the world?
luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
One of our local libraries actually does something along those lines. It's a municipal library system, roughly as big as, but not associated with the county library system; and one of the two largest in the state. It charges for membership for anyone who is not a city resident or employee (or at least it did a few years back when I got a non-resident membership).
luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
As an artist, I'll chime in here. Subsidizing art doesn't, in any way, enrich the masses. It enhances the "art as commodity" effect, rather than diminishing it. It creates a huge community whose purpose is to garner government funding rather than to truly express themselves artistically. It ultimately hurts true art -- art that is made as a personal expression of creativity.
This was obvious in the US a short time ago. "Artists" spent more time and effort on their grant proposals than on their "art". During the heyday of the National Endowment for the Arts, from the mid '80s to the early '90s; entire groups sprung up whose sole purpose was to collect government funding. A few never turned out a single product, and of course were never penalize for it, because hey, that's just how "art" works. Galleries sprung up all over, and were flooded with the most pitiful collection of crap turned out by any hack with a fresh BfA and the ability to write a convincing grant proposal.
There was soon a huge competition for gallery space and promotion; and the focus soon became one of popularity rather than artistic skill. Art became increasingly commoditized, and great sums were paid for works that are now nearly worthless; the artists almost forgotten. Grants became more commonly given to more popular artists. It quickly became apparent that what it took to survive was not to be a better artist, but to be a better advertiser. And artists quickly learned that Controversy sold better than Art. The great wave of "controversial" artists then took over. It was no longer about the art, but about outrage and spectacle. Hacks who could create a good show, regardless of the quality of their art, got the public recognition, and therefore the government funding. Lacking the capability to create art that was valued for it's own merits, they began to trumpet the need to value art because of it's message or origins. It wasn't enough that people appreciate their art, they had to "understand" it, to "realize it's cultural significance". What mattered was not the art itself, but who created it. Art created by yet another surburban kid from a big New York art school didn't matter; but the same art created by disadvantaged black lesbians did. The most important part of any gallery exhibition wasn't the work being exhibited, it was the "vision statement" that preceeded it. Art and artists became more and more elitist and detached; and began creating and living in specialized groups and communities that bore less and less resemblance to the rest of the world. The market was flooded, and people began to lose interest.
Thus we ended up with people like Robert Maplethorpe, technically mediocre, unoriginal and derivative; but who managed to create enough of a furor for his presentation of his subject matter (he was not even original in his choice of subject, far from it) that he managed to create a moderately lucrative short-term career before fading back into obscurity. Or Andres Serranos, a completely talentless hack whose stated purpose was not to create art, but to create outrage, to simply piss people off. People who would never have even been a blip on the radar of the public had it not been for the NEA funding controversy; which truly talented artists remained relatively unknown to the public at large. They tried to hide behind a flag of repression, accusations of censorship, even though those weren't even remotely applicable to the situation.
For a while, everyone knew who Maplethorpe and Serranos were, but only in the context of the controversy. How many people outside the art community/industry knew what sort of work they did before the blow-up? How many know what they've been doing since? How many had even heard of truly talented artists working in similar media from the same period, like Erwitt, Ulesman, or Witkin. How many people recall the true censorship controversies involving true artists, like Mann or Sturges?
There was the inevitable backlash, or rather two backlashes. Rather than enriching, people began to see art and artists as nonsensical garbage, ivory-tower mental masturbation, offensive trash, and poorly-disguised pornography. One, smaller segment, moved even farther into elitism, denouncing all contemporary art in favor of the classics; but in an exclusionary way, pronouncing art to be above the masses, and denigrated anyone who liked fine art "for the wrong reasons". The mass movement swung away from the self-proclaimed elites on both ends, and ended up moving into the commercialized kitsch that now dominates popular culture.
So rather than "empowering" artists and "enriching" the masses, government subsidies contributed, rather, to it's decline as fewer people were making art for the sheer creative urge, and more as a propaganda and money-making tool.
Elind
Philosopher
By the news it seems Paris is burning again.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/new..._RTRUKOC_0_UK-FRANCE-RIOTS.xml&archived=False
Something to do with a clash of cultures I believe. I've read of their cultural opposition, from time to time, to Disney, McDonalds, English bastardization of words that they don't have, but this latest problem they have comes from people they have invited in without any requirement to behave like the French do.
I don't want to seem like I'm gloating, it's not a unique problem, but it does seem that the French have a way of focusing on cultural trivia as a scapegoat for real problems. As one of them eloquently once said, "Vive La Quebec Libre".
Well, focusing on trivia as a scapegoat for real problems, as you so well put it, is not a uniquely french habit.
So you're saying that artists don't apply for gov't grants here? Sorry, I've missed something.
C'mon Jas dahlin', don't play dumb... You know perfectly well that I'm talking about the abuses mentioned by luchog. As far as I know, most (like almost all of it) of the money for culture in Canada goes to concert halls, orchestras, museums, libraries and festivals i.e. cultural institutions, who then spend it as they see fit. Very little of it goes into direct grants to artists.
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Mycroft
High Priest of Ed
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Because you disagree?
mumblethrax
Species traitor
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I think what Orwell is getting at is that the process is not so deterministic. There's a difference between a well-managed art fund and a feeding trough for those who prostrate themselves before bureaucrats.
Take a look at the projects the NEA is currently funding, for example. There's a notable focus on making art accessible, which I think is the best argument for government funding of art.
I agree that there's a corrupting influence whenever you create an incentive for artists to chase after a grant, but I don't really think it's any more severe than that of chasing after society patrons or gallery sales.
My sister gets quite a few grants for her artwork from at least one government, and she doesn't run away with the money. Her art focuses specifically on the relationship between art and science, and public's relationship to both. I don't think she'd be able to make ends meet without grants, and I think her work does actually enrich people's lives, although I'll confess to at least some bias.
Incidentally, Maplethorpe died in 1989, so there's a good reason you might not have heard much from him lately. Serrano isn't particularly challenging, but he's certainly technically competent as a photographer, so I don't think it's fair to characterize him as a talentless hack.
Take a look at the projects the NEA is currently funding, for example. There's a notable focus on making art accessible, which I think is the best argument for government funding of art.
I agree that there's a corrupting influence whenever you create an incentive for artists to chase after a grant, but I don't really think it's any more severe than that of chasing after society patrons or gallery sales.
My sister gets quite a few grants for her artwork from at least one government, and she doesn't run away with the money. Her art focuses specifically on the relationship between art and science, and public's relationship to both. I don't think she'd be able to make ends meet without grants, and I think her work does actually enrich people's lives, although I'll confess to at least some bias.
Incidentally, Maplethorpe died in 1989, so there's a good reason you might not have heard much from him lately. Serrano isn't particularly challenging, but he's certainly technically competent as a photographer, so I don't think it's fair to characterize him as a talentless hack.
Because it sounds like caricature i.e. it sounds exactly like what I would expect luchdog (an american who has repeatedly expressed right of centre political opinions) to say. It is not a proof of bias, but it sure makes me suspicious.
So what if the NEA mismanaged their grants? Even if that's true (I dunno), that doesn't mean that all government support of the arts (and culture) is counterproductive. As mumblethrax said, possible mismanagement of the NEA doesn't imply that government funding for art and culture always leads to abuse and "bad art". It just means that the NEA was badly managed.
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luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
1) Ridiculing someone's name is an expression of immaturity and limited intellect.
2) Only my broad economic opinions could arguably be interpreted as right of center. Arguably. I tend to lean rather to the libertarian direction; but am more pragmatic than most of those who style themselves libertarian.
3) I spent quite a lot of time in the arts community in the late-'80s through the early-'90s, and was a Fine Arts major in college. If anything, I was being conservative. You would probably not believe the kind of crap I witnessed being paid for by government grants; either directly or indirectly. Seriously. One guy, as a satirical prank, actually managed to get a showing of, and funding for, abstract fingerpainting by his kids; simply by framing it and attaching a suitably woo-woo, new-agey "vision statement".
At that time, there were organizations whose sole purpose was to obtain NEA grants; either for some sort of "social betterment through art" program, or simply as proxies for artists who didn't have the know-how (or brain power) to manage on their own. Schools taught week-long workshops in nothing more than how to write and submit grant proposals.
It's that kind of crap that made me switch my major to Computer Science. (Of course, I'm from Seattle, and we probably saw quite a bit more of that wackiness than anywhere but Soho or LA.)
The problem is, as long as there is money available for the asking, there will be people who try to abuse it; and they will almost never consider it abuse. The only reason it's not beng so heavily abused now is that the market has been pretty well exhausted, and there is considerably less money available.
As for Canada, I spent a couple years watching a lot of FBoC shorts and features. I can't even recall most of them anymore. There were a few that I thought were outstanding, and a h3ll of a lot more that were complete and utter dreck. I've seen homebrewed fanfilms that were better than the majority of what the FBoC was churning out.
Luchog, sorry about the name thing, that was a typo.
As for the rest, all you have said doesn't affect my point: mismanagement of the NEA doesn't mean that all government support of the arts (and culture) is counterproductive.
As for your opinion of the Film Board of Canada, well, your appreciation of aesthetics is your own business. I happen to like a lot of what they did, and I'm not the only one.
By the way, I see no reason to take your particular opinions on art very seriously. I have my own eyes and brain, I can decide what I like and what I don't, thank you.
As for the rest, all you have said doesn't affect my point: mismanagement of the NEA doesn't mean that all government support of the arts (and culture) is counterproductive.
As for your opinion of the Film Board of Canada, well, your appreciation of aesthetics is your own business. I happen to like a lot of what they did, and I'm not the only one.
By the way, I see no reason to take your particular opinions on art very seriously. I have my own eyes and brain, I can decide what I like and what I don't, thank you.
epepke
Philosopher
- Joined
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- Messages
- 9,264
I don't know about Serranos, but I always knew Mapplethorpe (not Maplethorpe) from his black-and-white photographs of flowers. I always thought they were pretty damned good.
I think that the controversy over Mapplethorpe was overblown and based on some prints in drawers that Mapplethorpe probably wouldn't have chosen to exhibit.
On the other hand, I've gone to a lot of art openings during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Art is like the blues (which is, of course, art, so I repeat myself). It does something good to art for an artist to have to make the decision between having a meal and buying a tube of paint or a set of guitar strings.
I responded to this yesterday, though maybe it was swallowed up in the vortex that was the forum shutdown?
Anyway, the point of that post, is that the gov't supports a lot of crap 'art'.