Who needs art today?

[Perry Way]

Junk might become art, some artists might be junkies, but art to become junk?

Well, not purposefully, but it does happen, yes. If you don't fix your print right, if you leave a print in a humid environment where mold can eat the gelatin, there's a bunch of different ways that art can become junk, I'm sure with every medium! Just tryin' to be objective...

 

[Alex1994]

I'm interested in what you think the role of 'skill' is. At the famous Saatchi Gallery in London there are works that ostensibly require no skill to create (one example is a collection of planks and tarpaulin taped to the wall with parcel tape). Sometimes we get a work like that, and people call it 'junk' because anyone could've made it, and others call it 'art' because it's unique to that artist. Is it the thought or the skill that goes into the art that matters? The old masters (Rembrandt, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Van Gogh and so many more) are admired because they used both.

 

[Q.G.]

Skill is needed to a degree that allows to produce something that does what it is supposed to do.
If it requires no skill at all, that's perfectly fine.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Art and skill are inseparable.

There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman.
The artist is an exalted craftsman.

Walter Gropius, Founder of Bauhaus

 

[phenix]

I would add another variable: connotation vs. denotation. The first is specific to art, to any artistic work, maybe the essential of what we understand by art. Denotation is too simplistic, too clear, too direct, and sometime too objective, that it ruins any artistic character or expectation. I believe that a connoted expression always needs some skill, while denoting communication does not. Thus, skill appears to be a necessary part of any artistic act.

 

[Q.G.]

I would add another variable: connotation vs. denotation. The first is specific to art, to any artistic work, maybe the essential of what we understand by art. Denotation is too simplistic, too clear, too direct, and sometime too objective, that it ruins any artistic character or expectation. I believe that a connoted expression always needs some skill, while denoting communication does not. Thus, skill appears to be a necessary part of any artistic act.

I disagree.

No connotation without denotation, of course. So if art would be the exclusive 'owner' of connotations, it would also have that too simplistic [etc.] denotation.
But it's not true that only art is symbolic.

And with that, it's also not true that the skill involved in forming utterances that have a connotation is anything special, or even peculiar to art.

Skill is a means to an end. It's quite possible to express what you want to express, without needing to be particularly skilled in one medium or another.
Whether art needs skill depends entirely on what it needs a specific medium to do.


Though the craftsmen of the Bauhaus would of course have us believe that, Ralph, craft (being skilled) is not the aim of the game, and only needed if and when it is needed.

So yes: art and skil are inseparable. You need to apply skill, to the degree that the art requires. Which may not be a lot.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

... Though the craftsmen of the Bauhaus would of course have us believe that, Ralph, craft (being skilled) is not the aim of the game, and only needed if and when it is needed. ...

That's not what Bauhaus taught. Gropius did not say that craft was needed to make art. Bauhaus taught art as the highest degree of craft. That's different. At Bauhaus there was no essential difference between art and craft. Craft leads to art in a promotional sense.

Art and craft do not coexist. They are essential the same at different degrees of perfection! The only difference between the two is probably the word 'create' in art. Create means making new, which is different from copying. Pure craft may copy, art cannot.

There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman.
The artist is an exalted craftsman.

Walter Gropius, Founder of Bauhaus

 

[Q.G.]

That's not what Bauhaus taught. Gropius did not say that craft was needed to make art. Bauhaus taught art as the highest degree of craft. That's different. At Bauhaus there was no essential difference between art and craft. Craft leads to art in a promotional sense.

Art and craft do not coexist. They are essential the same at different degrees of perfection! The only difference between the two is probably the word 'create' in art. Create means making new, which is different from copying. Pure craft may copy, art cannot.

There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman.
The artist is an exalted craftsman.

Walter Gropius, Founder of Bauhaus

But let's not be blind to the fact that the above view is that of a craftsman. A famous one, yes. But also a craftsman who indeed thought that art is the highest degree of craft.
That's his opinion.

I agree that art and craft do coexist. You need to be skilled in craft to the level demanded by the art you want to produce.

I absolutely do not agree with any suggestion that art, to be art, would need to be a display of highly skilled craftsmanship.

Art is not perfect craft.
Art must use craft, as far as, and to the degree that, the particular work of art would demand.
If art does that, and only that (i.e. make the medium do what it - art - demands it will do), it uses craft to perfection. Even if the level of craft used is miles removed from perfect craft.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Religion is another endeavor that makes us human just like art. The APUGer as the question "At what cost". For me there is a limit for the cost of art. I detest the work of Damien Hirst where he kills animals for his art. The price is too high for me. As for religion, the cost is too high when there is dogma, wars and human suffering over it. Like art as well as religion, dogma serves no one. We are lucky to be living a country (the US), which allows us to create any kind of art and practice what ever religion we like . Art and religion should be a means for us better understand our condition.

 

[ruilourosa]

bauhaus is gone, walter gropius dead, kandinski too, it´s done, they did well! but we cannot keep raining in the wet!, crafsmanship is a must i believe, but it can move in many ways some odd and misterious, art is constantly expanding it´s sphere or it´s field, but of course not everything being good. to be a good sommelier you have to be a connoisseur, or else you are going to confuse vinegar with a Pera Manca, you have to know better! start with a jansen or a gombrich and keep on going, go to louvre, the prado and across the street, meet the school, shut off the TV and read some books, enjoy... art is(may be) something that hasn´t got an objective and defined use like most human practices, but surely is a delight when it hit´s you

by the way! do not drink vinegar (you can use it as a stopbath) drink Pera Manca!

 

[RalphLambrecht]

No, I think Gropius has a point.

Take human emotion and imagination, add craft, and you've got art.

Indeed, if you agree that all humans have emotion and imagination, then, all we need is craft to express ourselves and be artists! Everyone of us can be an artist as long as we are capable of turning our creative thoughts into a piece of art, and all we need to do that is to understand the mechanics of turning imagination into product. Craft does that!

The most creative thought, without craft, will be nothing but an unheard attempt of self-expression.

 

[PhotoBob]

My vision of art is to express the innate God-given talent through the panoply of life moments in visual form that enrich our lives and nourish our souls amidst a damaged world.
"Creating" photographic art therefore, is a necessary therapy.

 

[mick8585]

I have no desire to get to the bottom of what drives me in my art.
I am content to be inspired, translate what I experience and present it to the world. Let them who witness the result decide.
But I think I have found the meaning of life though. Finding art in the everyday enables an existence enmasse. Quality becomes important rather than quantity.

 

[Q.G.]

The most creative thought, without craft, will be nothing but an unheard attempt of self-expression.

But how much craft, Ralph? How much?

Most drunks are capable of letting very many people know how they feel about the world, just by shouting, preferably all through the night.
Veritable, highly skilled craftsmen?


I'll repeat myself: craft is only needed as far as it is needed.
And that may not be much.

The level of "creativity" (or whatever you like to call what makes up the essence of art) and the level of skill in a craft needed to succesfully express that "creativity" are by no means one and the same thing.
The one deos not even have to match the other.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Skill is needed to a degree that allows to produce something that does what it is supposed to do.
If it requires no skill at all, that's perfectly fine.

But how much craft, Ralph? How much? ...

You answered your own question in a previous post, but went too far by including 'no skill at all'. No skill, no art.

However, I agree with your revised statement:

... craft is only needed as far as it is needed.
And that may not be much.

I don't care how much, as long as we agree that they are inseparable.

 

[ruilourosa]

god-given?



craft? what was the craft needed to make the duchamp fountain, one of the most intriguing piece of art in the 20th century?, what was the craft needed to make nan goldin snapshots? please do not confuse quality with art, manufacture with art!

without doubt i believe in a immaculate technique (pointed although) with delicate and working hands, but art is irreverency and strenght not just:well done.

i believe in work and effort and time but many beautiful works of art have just a bit!

i see so much good photographs that have so little of that craft and they blow me away (maybe not in the way that barthes described, but maybe close!)

please do not generalize, art does the inverse, the universal cience of the unique individual

 

[noumin]

Take human emotion and imagination, add craft, and you've got art.

Take human emotion and imagination, add craft, and you've got human emotion, imagination and craft.
Take human human emotion, imagination, craft, add marketing and you have art.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Take human emotion and imagination, add craft, and you've got human emotion, imagination and craft.
Take human human emotion, imagination, craft, add marketing and you have art.

I often share your frustration.

 

[Q.G.]

You answered your own question in a previous post, but went too far by including 'no skill at all'. No skill, no art.

However, I agree with your revised statement:



I don't care how much, as long as we agree that they are inseparable.

Well... no skill at all is an amount of skill. (that's really lame, isn't it? Sorry!)

Anyway. Everything we do requires skill. So everything we do and skill are inseparable.

But that's not the point.
Skill is not the differentia specifica.
If art requires no more skill in particular than, say, writing a letter, it would be hard to say that skill is a defining attribute of art, without also having to conclude that writing a letter is art.

And creating art does indeed not require more skill in particular.

The amount of skill needed depends on what the artist wants to make what medium do what exactly. And that amount may be even less than required for tieing your shoe laces. And conversely, things we would not call art may require tremendous amounts of skill.

But that's all about amount.
Perhaps there is a specific skill that, no matter in what amount, is required to create art. Maybe the difference is not in the amount, but in the sort of skill.

But is it? Is there a specific skill that could be the thing that makes or breaks (by absence) art?
And is that then still anywhere near what you meant?

 

[RalphLambrecht]

... And is that then still anywhere near what you meant?

To answer that, I opened up a new thread:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)