Two year old abstract artist

[BPSCG]

No one's sitting outside your window blasting Cage's 4'33" on a boom box (or are they)

Lady at the next cubicle had it going all day long one day last week. I tried complaining but couldn't find her.

Art rarely claims to heal the sick or discover lost children, or break the laws of thermodynamics. The central claim is to provide an experience that some find it is worth having.

Does that make a hooker "art?"

I imagine no one is particularly offended that expensive food and concert tickets exist for things you wouldn't enjoy (Do you know how much Miley Cyrus tickets sold for last year? How about fungus dug up by pigs?) However it is rare that people make the leap from "I don't care for cauliflower" to "Cauliflower is a scam, anyone who likes it is deluded".

I don't think that's what people are saying here, and I don't think that's a proper analogy. It's not whether a child's random smears are a scam or not, but whether they are art.

Steamed cauliflower, combined with roasted chicken and a tossed salad are a meal. A bag of groceries is not.

No sane person would claim that a da Vinci painting is not art. And no sane person would claim that a palette of oil paints is. A child's random smears fall somewhere in the continuum between da Vinci and the palette. The point it becomes art is...

...hell, I don't know.

 

[slingblade]

...hell, I don't know.

Yeah. I imagine you sitting there for at least a few seconds, trying to come up with the point at which art happens. I couldn't, either.

Art is subjective. Nasty, slippery thing, the subjective.



ETA: Beeps, here's another thought: sometimes art is not made by the artist, but by the viewer.

oooooooooooooooh.


But yeah. I can imagine a scenario in which someone has...oh, placed a series of objects, such as fruit, in a bowl. Not arranged them, mind you, just unpacked the shopping and put the fruit in a bowl.

Then someone else comes along, sees it, and for whatever reason, finds the haphazard placement of the colors and shapes quite appealing. And she says "You know, that is art."

Is it? Can a bowl of randomly placed fruit be, itself, art? Or is it not art, but only artistic, until someone captures it in a photo, or sketch, or watercolor?


Hmmm.....I don't know.

ETA2: In that case, who is the artist: the one who placed the fruit, the one who captured it, both...or neither?

 

[HawaiiBigSis]

I still maintain -- as I have in other threads on this subject -- that art is in the eye of the beholder, not necessarily the "artist."

(And welcome back Piggy!)

 

[tomwaits]

It's my guess they were actually trying to play in time with each other, but couldn't.

Your guess is correct: that is exactly what happened. However, it is unique in that the drummer actually kept in time with herself without faltering. Have you ever been in a band? It's very odd how an out-of-time band could sound like that.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

No sane person would claim that a da Vinci painting is not art. And no sane person would claim that a palette of oil paints is. A child's random smears fall somewhere in the continuum between da Vinci and the palette. The point it becomes art is...

...hell, I don't know.

I'd back right up there, because you've fallen into the trap the art scammers want you to fall into - debating whether or not their rubbish "is art".

That's a purely semantic debate, and one they'll always win just by saying "I reckon it is art, the definition of art is subjective, therefore I win!".

The real question is whether it is good art, or whether it's technically skilled, or represents a genuine cultural accomplishment. The art-woos don't like answering that question one little bit, because:

a) They know they are defending worthless tripe,
b) Their only defence for such tripe is to endorse radical artistic subjectivity ("It's good art if somebody, anybody, likes it, there are no standards"),
c) Once they've embraced that level of radical subjectivity, there's no such thing as an artist or an art critic any more. Well, there wouldn't be if the woowoos and scammers bothered with pesky things like consistency. So what are we paying these scam artists for exactly?

Of course, because artists and art-woos are inconsistent, dishonest weasels what they actually do is they embrace radical subjectivity when a skeptic puts them under pressure, then they run gaily off and start making claims that particular artists or pieces are actually very good (listen to them defending Pollock some time) as soon as the pressure is off.

 

[Cavemonster]

BPSCG-
This is the attitude I was talking about

I'd back right up there, because you've fallen into the trap the art scammers want you to fall into - debating whether or not their rubbish "is art".

That's a purely semantic debate, and one they'll always win just by saying "I reckon it is art, the definition of art is subjective, therefore I win!".

The real question is whether it is good art, or whether it's technically skilled, or represents a genuine cultural accomplishment. The art-woos don't like answering that question one little bit, because:

a) They know they are defending worthless tripe,
b) Their only defence for such tripe is to endorse radical artistic subjectivity ("It's good art if somebody, anybody, likes it, there are no standards"),
c) Once they've embraced that level of radical subjectivity, there's no such thing as an artist or an art critic any more. Well, there wouldn't be if the woowoos and scammers bothered with pesky things like consistency. So what are we paying these scam artists for exactly?

Of course, because artists and art-woos are inconsistent, dishonest weasels what they actually do is they embrace radical subjectivity when a skeptic puts them under pressure, then they run gaily off and start making claims that particular artists or pieces are actually very good (listen to them defending Pollock some time) as soon as the pressure is off.

Again, like gay marriage, why do you get so wound up over what other people enjoy? Dishonest weasels? I don't understand the bitterness.

So what are we paying these scam artists for exactly?

Who exactly are you giving money to against your will?

 

[luchog]

It was very likely a reference to Duchamp's fountain, the granddaddy of pieces that modern art haters love to get their panties in a twist over.

Possibly, but Duchamp's work, like most of the daDaists, was good in a way that later imitators simply cannot be.

DadA was less of an art movement, and more of a protest movement, aimed at European culture and and outgrowth of WWI. No single work from the period can be viewed on its own, outside of the context of the entire movement, and retain its meaning. It wasn't so much an art movement, as an anti-art movement. The destruction and rebuilding of art. To a very great extent, it was also satire. People who imitate it rarely understand what it was about, and usually end up just looking stupid.

 

[lionking]

My problem with the little girl in the OP being considered to have created art is that, as she grows, she will start to draw and paint like other boys and girls - you know, pictures of trees, houses and mum and dad that you stick on the refrigerator. Her "abstract" period will be over. No, she is not an artist and therefore what she produced is not art, in my opinion.

 

[Cavemonster]

Possibly, but Duchamp's work, like most of the daDaists, was good in a way that later imitators simply cannot be.

DadA was less of an art movement, and more of a protest movement, aimed at European culture and and outgrowth of WWI. No single work from the period can be viewed on its own, outside of the context of the entire movement, and retain its meaning. It wasn't so much an art movement, as an anti-art movement. The destruction and rebuilding of art. To a very great extent, it was also satire. People who imitate it rarely understand what it was about, and usually end up just looking stupid.

From all similar work I've seen, unless there's something omitted from the description, I can't imagine that it was a very interesting tribute. I totally agree with you and will go one step farther to say that most work that's centered around an homage to an earlier movement is boring (to me at least) unless it really has something new to add.

 

[luchog]

So the Shaggs only became popular based on name recognition? If not, how is this example relevant to what I was talking about?

Yes, actually, they did. The story of The Shaggs preceded the popularity of the albums, and is directly responsible for it. The music went nowhere, and pretty much fell of the map for over 5 years. It wasn't until the '80s with the peak of the pos-Punk hipster scene that the Shaggs actually gained popularity. Articles in major music publications such as Rolling Stone started hailing it as an "avant-garde" classic, and trendoids who wanted to prove their underground credentials started listening to it, or at least claiming to. The Shaggs' popularity didn't really take off until the '90s, and the rise of postmodern slacker fandom indulging in low-quality music, art, and entertainment in an ironic, self-aware manner intended to demonstrate one's detachment from the earnest, unpretended affection from things which were considered too "mainstream", "capitalist", "corporate", or, like, whatever.

 

[tomwaits]

I heard about the Shaggs via Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa. I could give ****-all what Rolling Stone says about anything, since they always seem 20 years behind the times and will never give any album a rating above or below 3 stars. I enjoy the rhythmic experimentation of the Magic Band and Zappa. In fact, the song "America Drinks" on Zappa's album Absolutely Free seems to share a lot of similarities with the Shaggs' style.

 

[luchog]

Who exactly are you giving money to against your will?

In the US, anyone funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

[luchog]

I enjoy the rhythmic experimentation of the Magic Band and Zappa. In fact, the song "America Drinks" on Zappa's album Absolutely Free seems to share a lot of similarities with the Shaggs' style.

The difference being that Frank Zappa was a talented and skilled musician, and Don van Vliet, although musically unskilled at the start of his career, had a good deal of musical talent, surrounded himself with accomplished musicians, and quickly developed a considerable skill. Their work started with a strong technical foundation, and used that as the springboard for their explorations in rule-breaking.

The Shaggs, by comparison, were not skilled, and only the drummer showed any inkling of talent. They were not the result of any desire to create music for it's own sake, and the girls themselves weren't really all that interested in being musicians. They played around with it just the same any most other children their age did. Their entire "career" was engineered by their highly superstitious father, whose sole purpose for wanting them to be musicians was in order to fullfil some sort of woo-woo "prediction" made by his mother, and to make some money in the process. He was an abusive nutjob who used his children to play out his own banal fantasies.

 

[Ragnarok]

Art does not require intent. I prove this by citing The Shaggs. Their album "Philosophy of the World" is an incredible unintentional avant-garde masterpiece.

He wasn't kidding!
My Pal Foot Foot

Sheer class.

You're Something Special To Me

Seriously!

 

[UserGoogol]

I don't see the problem. Art very vaguely speaking is about "beauty." (To define one vague word with another equally vague word.) There are various things out in the world which are beautiful, and artists will regularly these things from the world and make it into art. Mountain ranges, human beings, fields, whatever are beautiful and artists grab from this from time to time. But these are not the only things in the world which are beautiful. TV static, oil on a parking lot, blankets coiled over chairs, are also beautiful, and I admire their beauty regularly.

Does it require less talent to replicate TV static than mountains? Probably, and financially there's certainly something irrational about paying money for something you can see in the parking lot in front of McDonalds, but the art world has always been deeply irrational. It is idiotic that original paintings or worth more than reasonably convincing knock-offs, even though functionally they produce the same result. But the art is still neat in its own way.

I don't think that talent has anything at all to do with art, and the idea that it should seems even more irrational and annoyingly anthropocentric. Whether or not a work of art has been created by an elaborate computer program or a human being purposefully arranging things or some paint accidentally falling on some paper because someone left it out, it is the same physical object, and should be treated the same by people.

 

[tomwaits]

The difference being that Frank Zappa was a talented and skilled musician, and Don van Vliet, although musically unskilled at the start of his career, had a good deal of musical talent, surrounded himself with accomplished musicians, and quickly developed a considerable skill. Their work started with a strong technical foundation, and used that as the springboard for their explorations in rule-breaking.

The Shaggs, by comparison, were not skilled, and only the drummer showed any inkling of talent. They were not the result of any desire to create music for it's own sake, and the girls themselves weren't really all that interested in being musicians. They played around with it just the same any most other children their age did. Their entire "career" was engineered by their highly superstitious father, whose sole purpose for wanting them to be musicians was in order to fullfil some sort of woo-woo "prediction" made by his mother, and to make some money in the process. He was an abusive nutjob who used his children to play out his own banal fantasies.

I'm aware of the Shaggs' history, but I'm not sure what it has to do with the music itself. You are basically saying that there is a difference because Zappa/Beefheart were trying to make that odd sound, whereas the Shaggs did it unintentionally. Does that really matter? In the past, I might have said yes. But I can isolate the album and just listen and enjoy it without thinking of its origin or influence. Doesn't that make it art?

 

[Cavemonster]

In the US, anyone funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

That's not an unreasonable argument on one level, but I think if the NEA were really the issue, they would have mentioned it by name, and had an example of what work was funded that they disagreed with.

I went through and added up the very few grants that went to display abstract work last year (there are no individual grants) and the cost to americans is much less than 1/10 of a cent each. A tiny fraction of the money AIG spent on a lavish party after receiving a government bailout.

 

[soylent]

I've puked up better art than that.

You made a Jackson Pollock?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

BPSCG-
This is the attitude I was talking about


Again, like gay marriage, why do you get so wound up over what other people enjoy? Dishonest weasels? I don't understand the bitterness.

Who exactly are you giving money to against your will?

"Who are we hurting with this scam?", you ask.

You're hurting the artists who have actual skills, who improve our culture by producing works of impact or beauty that don't need an art-woo to "explain" them, by diverting money that should go to real artists into the pockets of scammers.

You're also making the world a poorer and uglier place, by encouraging the production of rubbish when human beings are capable of producing worthwhile art that makes people's lives richer or happier.

You're also making the world a stupider place, by encouraging fuzzy thinking and conning people into thinking that there is something wrong with them if they see the Emperor's dangly bits when they look at a Pollack.

 

[volatile]

EDIT - I see the debate has moved on slightly. More in a bit.