Are Jackson Pollock's Paintings Art?

[luchog]

Characteristics of "Art" include some kind of message, manifesto or semiotics embedded in the piece and/or the written artist statement next to particularly vacuous concoctions.

The sheer existence of an "artist's statement" is an effective guarantee that the art is crap. If you have to tell someone what it means, you fail at art.

 

[luchog]

I think there are some grounds for saying that Pollock would be harder to fake than other painters, in a way, and that experts - yes, experts! - may be better placed to know what is and is not fake, if something like this is considered.

Except that experts are fundamentally unable to tell the difference between real and fake Pollock drip paintings. The controversy over the Teri Horton painting is the most blatant example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_the_*$&%_Is_Jackson_Pollock?

To this day, the authenticity is still in doubt. The "experts" were forced to resort to fingerprint analysis to verify the painting, and even then were unable to do so beyond a "three point match" (for legal purposes, fingerprint matches require anywhere from twelve to twenty point matches; so a three point match is effectively meaningless).

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yep. I see you're at 99 posts and the thread is not yet at 11 pages.

I've got the overs at 125 and 13 respectively. I bundled them so I'm getting 18:1, because back at your earliest posts, no one believed me when I said, "Big Lizard? Hell, he can keep this up for weeks!"

Very substantive post. Glad you can stay on topic.

[Compulsive post goes here.]

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Only if the farter calls it that.

A farter arter be more fartful?

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

The sheer existence of an "artist's statement" is an effective guarantee that the art is crap. If you have to tell someone what it means, you fail at art.

Thumbtyping impedes my ability to communicate the fullness of my thoughts.

I agree. But it is also a big part of "Art" as currently taught in university art departments.

 

[Belz...]

But what, pray tell, is your standard for judging what is or is not music?

A definition.

Having an arbitrary but relatively-objective definition that we tacitly agree to for a word helps up understand what we're talking about during discussions, and also helps us do stuff as groups. Defining something as "whatever the person doing it calls it" is a recipe for confusion.

 

[xjx388]

Picasso never committed to a specific explanation of his symbolism: "...this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse... If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are." Link

I know he didn't but plenty of others have told us what it means. I'm just trying (clumsily, i'm sure) to illustrate the idea that "great art," and "bad art," isn't something that we can quantify. There's no objective criteria we can establish to say: "This is art; that isn't." Luchog seemed to be saying that art has to communicate something as opposed to decoration which just looks pretty. And as Picasso pointed out, that communication is all on us. So if Pollock's works communicate to me and I consider it great art, I don't get why that isn't enough for it to be art. Gawdzilla Sama and others are saying that I've been conned. Luchog says I don't have enough education to know art. I call BS on both. It's art because I appreciate it as such.

You're free to answer that for yourself.

I don't particularly like it, myself. However, I would never say, "whoever commissioned that piece of **** sure did get hoodwinked!" If others appreciate it then that's enough for me.

 

[blutoski]

You picked a rather easy example though.

Yes, I deliberately chose an easy example. The post was really just answering cornsail's request for an example of art communicating something.

Of course this painting is a representation of the effects of the plague and of course it tells a story. But for much of the art that is generally considered to be great, it would be far less straightforward to say what, if anything, is being communicated.

Similarly the case for much of the music that is generally considered great, if we are including music in the broader sense of the word "art".

Yes, I agree, and that's what a different post of mine was trying to say I guess. Some people have no sense of smell. They're aware they're in the minority so they don't think 'smell' is a crock. If most people couldn't smell, there might be a general attitude that the few people who say roses smell good could actually be full of it.

I have an aspie friend who can't tell if people are happy or sad without asking them the direct question. If that was the normal state of affairs, people who could tell emotions visually might be regarded as making stuff up to look special.

I had a friend in highschool was one of the smartest people I know, but he was unable to do things like detect missing notes in musical phrases. ie: Shave and a haircut, four -space- sounded just fine. His main way to judge a 'good' guitarist was by counting how many notes the person could play in a second. He couldn't detect an emotional quality from bending or syncopating. Shifting up a key didn't sound uplifting. Shifting down a key didn't sound sad. He just didn't have that type of perception.

It's part of the natural distribution of all our sensory capabilities. Some people look at a painting and see 'random splatters of paint'. Some see the artist's success in producing a bright or dark emotional piece, a resting balanced (Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch), or an energizing unbalanced (Degas' Singer with the Glove) piece &c.

It's not always a question of intelligence or sophistication. I have that allele that makes cilantro taste like detergent. I can't imagine why I would take it upon myself to decree that people who like cilantro must therefore be a circle jerk of fakers.

Having said that... many artists deliberately include elements that are like easter eggs that people in the know can appreciate. (For example, in the abovementioned Madonna of the Goldfinch, the baby Jesus' arm outstretched is an allusion to preknowledge of his crucifiction... a tweak probably unnoticed by non-Christians) In that sense, there could possibly be a basis for some people feeling like outsiders. But the same goes for any creation. When Chris Hardwick makes a Star Wars joke on @Midnight that only hardcore fans who have read the canonical novels will understand, I don't think it means I should pillory him for his "elitism".

But this is the world we live in. A lot of the time when somebody discovers there's an expertise they're weak on, the response is to decree that the expertise is all a hoax. Creationists do this with evolution. AGW deniers do this with climatology. Holocaust deniers do this with historians. New Agers do this with medicine. (I was at a meeting last night, and I was the only person there who felt there was any value in licensing doctors - news to me but apparently, they all just buy their degrees for cash and get stoned for four years and call it medical school. I thanked them for letting me in on the big secret.)

 

[GlennB]

I think there are some grounds for saying that Pollock would be harder to fake than other painters, in a way, and that experts - yes, experts! - may be better placed to know what is and is not fake, if something like this is considered.

Bonus points for those who can tell me what makes this hard to fake:

It's upside-down, and only the artist would know for sure?

 

[hgc]

...

I have that allele that makes cilantro taste like detergent. I can't imagine why I would take it upon myself to decree that people who like cilantro must therefore be a circle jerk of fakers.

...

Tell me about it! I got that problem too.

Great post.

 

[angrysoba]

A definition.

Which is...?

Having an arbitrary but relatively-objective definition that we tacitly agree to for a word helps up understand what we're talking about during discussions, and also helps us do stuff as groups. Defining something as "whatever the person doing it calls it" is a recipe for confusion.

That may well be true, but language and what counts as music are both the type of things that don't remain static and have probably, eternally, led to old fuddy duddies complaining about their abuses, re: "That's not what the word means; look, here's my dictionary which completely settles the matter!" or "That's just noise; it isn't what I call music!" etc...

 

[Belz...]

Which is...?

That wasn't the question I was answering, and music isn't the topic of the thread. As for art, it's indeed difficult to pin down, but we do have definitions available. You can pick any you like, but "whatever it is" isn't one of them.

That may well be true, but language and what counts as music are both the type of things that don't remain static

Nobody said it has to remain static. Please read my post again.

 

[angrysoba]

That wasn't the question I was answering, and music isn't the topic of the thread. As for art, it's indeed difficult to pin down, but we do have definitions available. You can pick any you like, but "whatever it is" isn't one of them.

Why not? If I can pick any I like then I pick the one whereby a musician can declare it music because he or she says it is and people agree it is. That's what we do with money and many other things. You can complain that it is not music if you like and good luck convincing people.

Nobody said it has to remain static. Please read my post again.

No thanks.

 

[Foolmewunz]

We can't agree on good/bad music, art, writing, films, dance, theater, etc...

Declaring "I don't like it so it's not art" is just silly, though. If I don't like it, with "it" being Scott's "Gladiator", that doesn't mean it's condemned to the waste heap of cultural history, just my own waste heap of works of "art" that I don't particularly like.

Turner, Manet, Renoir, Picasso, Kandinsky, Miro, The Group of Seven, Mondrian, Dali, Rothko, O'Keefe, Rockwell, Kahlo, Pollock, Lichtenstein, Warhol, Wyeth, .... and the guy who paints Elvis and Bengal tigers on black velvet. Someone has solidly declared, at one point.... "That's not art."

I can go with the extreme.... that it's a work of art if the "artist" says it is. Whether it's a work of art that I appreciate or enjoy is another thing entirely. I know people who think Ansel Adams or Steiglitz isn't art... That's silly to me, but that's their personal choice. They don't feel that a photograph is art. Go figure.

 

[Belz...]

Why not?

Because then it's meaningless. What's music ? Anything I decide. What's a table ? Anything I decide. What's a meter ? Anything I decide.

Well, that's going to lead to fun conversations. You can have words mean anything you want, and I don't know what you're talking about. It's like we're speaking different languages.

No thanks.

You'd rather maintain your misunderstanding than make the effort to read again ?

 

[angrysoba]

Because then it's meaningless. What's music ? Anything I decide. What's a table ? Anything I decide. What's a meter ? Anything I decide.

Well, that's going to lead to fun conversations. You can have words mean anything you want, and I don't know what you're talking about. It's like we're speaking different languages.

I said: If I can pick any I like then I pick the one whereby a musician can declare it music because he or she says it is and people agree it is.
That is exactly how language works. I didn't say "You can have words mean anything you want". Re-read what I said.

You'd rather maintain your misunderstanding than make the effort to read again ?

That's a false dichotomy. I'm not maintaining any misunderstanding; I simply find it too tedious to re-read your posts. I'll accept you didn't say "static".

 

[Checkmite]

Art is any product of an application of human skill and creativity that is intended to be consumed for enjoyment rather than to serve a practical function.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Art is any product of an application of human skill and creativity that is intended to be consumed for enjoyment rather than to serve a practical function.

Yeah, and a part of the "problem" is that enjoyment is subjective. So far we haven't been able to tie down subjectivity like say gravitational force and put it onto a formula.

 

[Checkmite]

That's why I specified intention on the part of the artist. Any one person's failure to enjoy something has no bearing on whether it is art.

 

[angrysoba]

Art is any product of an application of human skill and creativity that is intended to be consumed for enjoyment rather than to serve a practical function.

I don't even know if art always requires "enjoyment". Maybe some art is intensely disturbing, and meant to be.