Arbus Retrospective Draws Criticism

nikos79 · Jun 29, 2025

chuckroast said:
But the real damage was done by the deconstructionists and postmodernists of the 1950s and beyond. They effectively robbed art of all meaning. Art was no longer about beauty or a meditation on the human experience. Instead - we were told - art is less important than the attributes of the artist - their biases, their history, their politics, their mustache ... you name it.

Although I generally agree with your posts two remarks here in my opinion:

1. Art is not about beauty. I like more the meditation on the human experience as you put it.

2. There is no art without the artist. What art offers us is a glimpse into the universe of the artist.

3. If the artist is not real, not honest with himself, not familiar with the language of his art, then he doesn't have a personal "signature" or universe in my opinion.

4. The attributes of the artists are totally irrelevant into appreciating the world of art.

5. The crying baby of Diane Arbus is probably the best photo of a baby I have ever seen.

Alan Edward Klein · Jun 29, 2025

nikos79 said:
Although I generally agree with your posts two remarks here in my opinion:

1. Art is not about beauty. I like more the meditation on the human experience as you put it.

2. There is no art without the artist. What art offers us is a glimpse into the universe of the artist.

3. If the artist is not real, not honest with himself, not familiar with the language of his art, then he doesn't have a personal "signature" or universe in my opinion.

4. The attributes of the artists are totally irrelevant into appreciating the world of art.

5. The crying baby of Diane Arbus is probably the best photo of a baby I have ever seen.

There is no art without the viewer. If the art doesn't change the viewer, then it isn't art.

Sirius Glass · Jun 29, 2025

chuckroast said:
There is nothing more pretentious than people inflicting contemporary pieties on past art. It is self-involved virtue signaling by the current day critic

Let Arbus be Arbus. For real criticism read Kimball and New Criterion.

Self appointed experts tend to exhibit such behavior.

Pieter12 · Jun 29, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
There is no art without the viewer. If the art doesn't change the viewer, then it isn't art.

Art is the expression of the artist. It does not matter if anyone else every sees or experiences it.

GregY · Jun 29, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
There is no art without the viewer. If the art doesn't change the viewer, then it isn't art.

Art exists without the viewer & doesn't need a viewer for validation.
Artist + creative process = art

Mike Lopez · Jun 29, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
There is no art without the viewer. If the art doesn't change the viewer, then it isn't art.

What if the viewer is incredibly obtuse and just can’t be reached?

retina_restoration · Jun 29, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
There is no art without the viewer. If the art doesn't change the viewer, then it isn't art.

If this were true, then there is no art. Your premise suggests that there are works of art that every single viewer is "changed" by, and I am certain that there is no such thing. Every single work of art ever made will leave some viewers unaffected/unchanged/indifferent, and so by your definition, it is not art.

chuckroast · Jun 29, 2025

Alex Benjamin said:
Sometimes for the better. We weren't always taught the truth.

We believed in many things. But belief is not knowledge.

But that's not what is going on in the arts and wider culture right now. The ancients may have been wrong about some things, but worked on the premise the truth and beauty were to be sought, however hard they were to find. The modern deconstructed mind has discarded truth or beauty as even being a thing (or if it is, it's important) to be replaced with "my personal truth" and the projection of current social pieties on old work. This functionally means that art has been robbed of all possible meaning, sacrificed on the altar of whomever happens to be consuming it.

Alan Edward Klein · Jun 29, 2025

Pieter12 said:
Art is the expression of the artist. It does not matter if anyone else every sees or experiences it.

THis is like: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

There is no sound. There may be vibrations, waves of moving air, but sound is from hearing. If no one hears it, there is no sound. Likewise, there may be brush strokes on a painting or grains on a photograph, but until someone looks at it and it changes them emotionally or spiritually, it is not art. A painter or a photographer calling their work art and themselves artists, are ego trips. But until viewers call their work art, it isn't.

chuckroast · Jun 29, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
There is no art without the viewer. If the art doesn't change the viewer, then it isn't art.

The viewer is irrelevant. The artist makes are for its own sake and for themselves. The consumption of the artifact is irrelevant to whether something is art.

However, for there to be an economy or marketplace for art, there have to be consumers.

So, the art stands on its own merits to be entirely judged by its creator. Its economic value, impact on society, influence on future generations, and so forth does depend on an arts marketplace.

The Bach Motets are brilliant pieces of music, whether or not anyone other than Bach ever heard them.

chuckroast · Jun 29, 2025

Pieter12 said:
Art is the expression of the artist. It does not matter if anyone else every sees or experiences it.

+1

Alan Edward Klein · Jun 29, 2025

retina_restoration said:
If this were true, then there is no art. Your premise suggests that there are works of art that every single viewer is "changed" by, and I am certain that there is no such thing. Every single work of art ever made will leave some viewers unaffected/unchanged/indifferent, and so by your definition, it is not art.

It's art to those it affects emotionally or spiritually. To others, it's just a picture.

Alan Edward Klein · Jun 29, 2025

chuckroast said:
The viewer is irrelevant. The artist makes are for its own sake and for themselves. The consumption of the artifact is irrelevant to whether something is art.

However, for there to be an economy or marketplace for art, there have to be consumers.

So, the art stands on its own merits to be entirely judged by its creator. Its economic value, impact on society, influence on future generations, and so forth does depend on an arts marketplace.

The Bach Motets are brilliant pieces of music, whether or not anyone other than Bach ever heard them.

This reminds me of the joke about the mother watching her son march with thousands of other soldiers, "Look at my son. He's marching Right-left; right-left. Everyone else is marching left-right. He's a genius."

Pieter12 · Jun 29, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
This reminds me of the joke about the mother watching her son march with thousands of other soldiers, "Look at my son. He's marching Right-left; right-left. Everyone else is marching left-right. He's a genius."

Is it a joke if no one finds it funny?

Vaughn · Jun 29, 2025

Art is an opinion.

Once formed, the opinion can then used to generate modifiers to the word 'artist'...such as; "not an...", "professional", 'lousy', 'world-changing', and "why in the world does he think he is an...".

chuckroast · Jun 29, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
THis is like: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

There is no sound. There may be vibrations, waves of moving air, but sound is from hearing. If no one hears it, there is no sound. Likewise, there may be brush strokes on a painting or grains on a photograph, but until someone looks at it and it changes them emotionally or spiritually, it is not art. A painter or a photographer calling their work art and themselves artists, are ego trips. But until viewers call their work art, it isn't.

It's not the same thing. The problem with the analogy is the "no on is around to hear it" part. Art always has someone around to hear it - the artist themselves. That's who is making it and for whom they are making it.

The tree falls in the forest with someone indeed to hear it. It just may only be an audience of one.

Vaughn said:
Art is an opinion.

Once formed, the opinion can then used to generate modifiers to the word 'artist'...such as; "not an...", "professional", 'lousy', 'world-changing', and "why in the world does he think he is an...".

I like that. I shall steal it.

GregY · Jun 29, 2025

chuckroast said:
It's not the same thing. The problem with the analogy is the "no on is around to hear it" part. Art always has someone around to hear it - the artist themselves. That's who is making it and for whom they are making it.

The tree falls in the forest with someone indeed to hear it. It just may only be an audience of one.

I like that. I shall steal it.

Just like the tree, art exists before the opinion.

chuckroast · Jun 29, 2025

GregY said:
Just like the tree, art exists before the opinion.

... And the hear of this entire thread - meanderings and all - is this:

If someone other than the artist proffers an opinion on the art, on what basis should that opinion itself be made and judged.

Should it be an opinion about the merits of the artist? Their technique? The values they had in their time? Their commercial success? Their political or religious leanings? Whether they drank too much? Whether we find the artist or their art currently offensive?

I will come down on the merits of the art as art, even though I may not like the time, the person, or the context in which the art was made.

I'd go so far as to say that even the artist's skill isn't really that important, except incidentally. "The Night Watch" is not an incredible piece of art just because Rembrandt had good brush technique.

(Oh, if you ever get a chance to see "The Night Watch" in person, as a photographer, you are obligated to go stare at if for a while. It is other-earthly. The light doesn't reflect off of it. The painting seems to emit it.)

GregY · Jun 29, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
THis is like: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

There is no sound. There may be vibrations, waves of moving air, but sound is from hearing. If no one hears it, there is no sound. Likewise, there may be brush strokes on a painting or grains on a photograph, but until someone looks at it and it changes them emotionally or spiritually, it is not art. A painter or a photographer calling their work art and themselves artists, are ego trips. But until viewers call their work art, it isn't.

AEK, the sound exists without the hearing.....

Vaughn · Jun 29, 2025

GregY said:
Just like the tree, art exists before the opinion.

Thank you -- another excellent way of looking (opinionating) at it. When I wrote "Art is an opinion", I realized it was a limiting form of opinionating. "Art" as a concept, a thing, an in-born characteristic of the species (or life), a profession, social construct, or whatever, can not be nailed down so easily. But it sounded good to me and I like your take on it, too.

Vaughn · Jun 29, 2025

GregY said:
AEK, the sound exists without the hearing.....

One 4th of July week-end I went backpacking up a large creek in the redwoods. I past one popular camping place (it was required to camp on the gravel beds and not in the redwood groves) that a family group used every year, and I went up another mile or so to my favorite place. On the 4th itself, I heard a large 'bang!' from down canyon, thinking the family must have brought some firecrackers in with them.

Hiking out a couple days later I came to a small redwood (about 3' dia, a couple hundred feet long) that had fallen across the creek -- right across where I had stopped for a rest and lunch on the hike up creek.

It was damming up the creek a bit and it would have gotten my undies wet if I was wearing any.

So even if you hear it, doesn't mean you know what you're hearing...

Photo -- 5x7 image of a narrow part of the creek -- the log on top of the rock (left there at high water flows) is about 8 to 10 feet in diameter.

Alan Edward Klein · Jun 29, 2025

Pieter12 said:
Is it a joke if no one finds it funny?

Well, jokes are like art. Not everyone agrees that it is.

MartinCrabtree · Jun 29, 2025

Does the artist create for the viewer? Or simply to create?

Alan Edward Klein · Jun 29, 2025

GregY said:
AEK, the sound exists without the hearing.....

No, a sound has to be heard. Otherwise, it's just vibrations in the air.

Alan Edward Klein · Jun 29, 2025

Vaughn said:
One 4th of July week-end I went backpacking up a large creek in the redwoods. I past one popular camping place (it was required to camp on the gravel beds and not in the redwood groves) that a family group used every year, and I went up another mile or so to my favorite place. On the 4th itself, I heard a large 'bang!' from down canyon, thinking the family must have brought some firecrackers in with them.

Hiking out a couple days later I came to a small redwood (about 3' dia, a couple hundred feet long) that had fallen across the creek -- right across where I had stopped for a rest and lunch on the hike up creek.

It was damming up the creek a bit and it would have gotten my undies wet if I was wearing any.

So even if you hear it, doesn't mean you know what you're hearing...

Photo -- 5x7 image of a narrow part of the creek -- the log on top of the rock (left there at high water flows) is about 8 to 10 feet in diameter.

That's a very artistic picture, Vaughn. You are an artist.

Arbus Retrospective Draws Criticism

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