Yeah, but is it art?

[lxdude]

I once attended a lecture by a photographer (can't recall his name), but he claimed that the artistic worth of any photograph can only be justified by its monetary value. A concept worthy of debate I think.

I've heard the that assertion before. That would mean the tastes of people with the money to spend on art are the only valid tastes, and the tastes of the wealthiest are the most valid.

If an artist paints a mural on the concrete lining of a drainage channel, it cannot be sold. Therefore its monetary value is indeterminable, and irrelevant. It effectively has a monetary value of zero. So is it not art?

 

[CatLABS]

I've heard the that assertion before. That would mean the tastes of people with the money to spend on art are the only valid tastes, and the tastes of the wealthiest are the most valid.

Nothing could be closer to the truth. Ain't capitalism grand?

If an artist paints a mural on the concrete lining of a drainage channel, it cannot be sold. Therefore its monetary value is indeterminable, and irrelevant. It effectively has a monetary value of zero. So is it not art?

Many bad painters are commissioned and paid to make awful murals, which clearly are art, as they cost a fortune. The more affluent the city the better the art.

 

[Jaf-Photo]

I don't know. Commercial success has a lot to do with marketing and image. A person who buys an insanely expensive masterpiece doesn't do it because he likes the picture. He does it because he can and because it's a status marker and an investment.

I think an artwork is something that speaks to people. It may not say the same thing to everyone, but if it creates a reaction in most people who view it, then it's art.

 

[CatLABS]

I think an artwork is something that speaks to people. It may not say the same thing to everyone, but if it creates a reaction in most people who view it, then it's art.

That is why Karlheinz Stockhausen called 9/11 “the greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos.”

Slavoj Zizek said abut 9/11:
Early in The Matrix, Neo used a hollowed-out book with the title Simulacra and Simulation to hide an illegal data disc which appeared in an early scene of the film. Later in the film, Morpheus utters these words after the main character Neo wakes up from his computer-generated virtual reality, experiencing the Real as a desolate, war-torn, yet spectacular geography. For Žižek, this represents a prime example of the 20th-century's "passion for the Real," for which the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were the ultimate artistic expression. His argument is that because this passion was sublimated into the postmodern "passion for the semblance," Americans experienced the "return of the Real" in exactly the same way as Neo did in the film, i.e., as a nightmarish virtual landscape or "reality as the ultimate 'effect.'"





***(Stockhousen later clarified: “In my work, I have defined Lucifer as the cosmic spirit of rebellion, of anarchy. He uses his high degree of intelligence to destroy creation. He does not know love.

“After further questions about the events in America, I said that such a plan appeared to be Lucifer’s greatest work of art. Of course I used the designation ‘work of art’ to mean the work of destruction personified in Lucifer. In the context of my other comments this was unequivocal.)

 

[jovo]

... but if it creates a reaction in most people who view it, then it's art.

Then, I suppose a graphic photograph of a fatal car crash is art? As I wrote above, nausea is a reaction...so are shock and horror. I think the quality and kind of reaction has to be qualified. I would pose the notion that the reaction should be one of aesthetic excitement or stimulation that is satisfying to the viewer. But, please add to that if you think it's going in the right direction.

 

[CatLABS]

the reaction should be one of aesthetic excitement or stimulation that is satisfying to the viewer

Those terms are purely personal in nature and thus subjective, speculative and culturally charged, making them not only non universal, but even contradictory.

The aesthetics of one culture may cause nausea in another.

 

[NJH]

In so far as photography is becoming easier (thanks in large part to digital), it takes alot less work and is less deserving at being called art.

A point often made which is incorrect in the extreme. Its easier to pick up a pencil and draw something on a piece of a paper than it is to use a DSLR, does this devalue drawing? Of course it doesn't. Hand someone a 35mm camera loaded with 400 speed film, 35mm lens set to F8 and prefocussed, preset shutter speed and it becomes an easier to use point and shoot out doors then any modern camera phone. Doesn't stop people repeating this mantra over and over about photography getting easier, all that has happened is more people are taking bad photographs more often then ever before.

If someone creates something of pretty much any form using pretty much any materials with an artistic intent them I am happy for them to claim it as art, who am I to judge them. Whether I like it or not though is an entirely different matter, whether I can appreciate the effort or craft required is again an entirely different matter again.

 

[jovo]

Those terms are purely personal in nature and thus subjective, speculative and culturally charged, making them not only non universal, but even contradictory.

The aesthetics of one culture may cause nausea in another as so blatantly demonstrated by the Europcentric quest (as interpreted in the US) to deliver "freedom" to the world.

As I am not referring to any particular culture, there is no cultural charge. EVERY culture has an aesthetic, and I am suggesting that satisfying that aesthetic, whatever it is, is a basis for regarding the work as art. And, those terms are absolutely not personal nor subjective in the broad, universal sense that I am invoking. Btw, injecting your political polemic in this discussion is NOT welcome. I'm sure all here have a bone to pick with something, but this isn't the forum.

 

[CatLABS]

EVERY culture has an aesthetic...

This statement must take so many things for granted to be true. The definition of one culture as it differs from another, the definition of aesthetics etc,. All of which are personal and subjective notions of self determination, and cannot be avoided, mostly because the those defining factors do not exist in all cultures/societies/language as they do in any given one.

If satisfying an Aesthetic is all it takes, it is a short step to say that some humans are works of art, more so then others (not meant in any political overtone, if such a thing is even possible), A. Sander would testify to this.

 

[jovo]

Then I'll be specific. From an online dictionary regarding culture, "1. The quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc." And, regarding aesthetic as a noun, "The philosophical theory or set of principles governing the idea of beauty at a given time and place: the clean lines, bare surfaces, and sense of space that bespeak the machine-age aesthetic; the Cubist aesthetic." Please tell me which cultures are void of a concern for what's excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.? And to clarify further, I am only referring to photographs, not the poetic sense of, say, an extremely attractive person being 'a work of art' or any other metaphor. Okay?

 

[CatLABS]

Then I'll be specific. From an online dictionary regarding culture, "1. The quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc." And, regarding aesthetic as a noun, "The philosophical theory or set of principles governing the idea of beauty at a given time and place: the clean lines, bare surfaces, and sense of space that bespeak the machine-age aesthetic; the Cubist aesthetic." Please tell me which cultures are void of a concern for what's excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.? And to clarify further, I am only referring to photographs, not the poetic sense of, say, an extremely attractive person being 'a work of art' or any other metaphor. Okay?

Those dictionaries were written by white people with a Europocentric point of view (which in it of its own is not a bad or wrong thing, simply a very specific point of view), assigning them globally and universally further stresses the point i was trying to make earlier. Different cultures, have different dictionary definitions of things.

 

[NJH]

The point CatLABS made may have had political tones but it was a fair one if taken in historical context rather than as a slight against a political side of things today. In the past pretty much all European countries exported their religion and culture to the countries they colonised, probably none more prolifically than my own but you guys have pretty much hit the ball out of the park so to speak when it comes to cultural exportation in the modern world.

 

[Jaf-Photo]

Catlabs

I very much resent connecting such insane drivel with my post.

That's my cue to leave this thread.

I would very much appreciate it if you would edit your post to remove my quote.

Thank you!

 

[Dali]

It looks like some make a connection between aesthetic and art. I would be interested to know why...?

 

[cliveh]

It looks like some make a connection between aesthetic and art. I would be interested to know why...?

Aesthetic may also be defined as a set of principles underlying the work of a particular artist or artistic movement

 

[doughowk]

Quote from NJH

Its easier to pick up a pencil and draw something on a piece of a paper than it is to use a DSLR, does this devalue drawing? Of course it doesn't.

Unless you are only doodling, I would dare say that using a pencil to create a work of art requires alot more effort & training than a DSLR.
And your description of using a 35mm film camera ignores the really hard work of developing and printing the results. Very poor analogies.

The point I'm trying to make is that as photography becomes easier, there is less creative effort expended to get the final result. From the public's viewpoint, less effort equates with less artistic value. It took alot of proselytizing by Adams, Steiglitz and others to get photography accepted in the artistic world; and that achievement is now reversing thanks in large part to the perceived ease of [digital] photography.

 

[cliveh]

Forgive my ignorance, but what does proselytizing mean?

 

[jovo]

It looks like some make a connection between aesthetic and art. I would be interested to know why...?

And, though I doubt we can even concur about the meaning of either term, why would you not connect art with an aesthetic?? I absolutely do v/v the definition I cited above...culturally derived or otherwise. I accept the notion of cultural universals that transcend language, and location. Every culture appreciates, in it's own way, what it senses as aesthetically satisfying. If you don't think so, please give concrete examples rather than vague generalities. Which culture has no aesthetic? Which culture does not define beauty in its own way? Which culture does not celebrate examples of the best expression of its tenets? To be really schoolyard about it, put up or shut up.

 

[Dali]

And, though I doubt we can even concur about the meaning of either term, why would you not connect art with an aesthetic?? I absolutely do v/v the definition I cited above...culturally derived or otherwise. I accept the notion of cultural universals that transcend language, and location. Every culture appreciates, in it's own way, what it senses as aesthetically satisfying. If you don't think so, please give concrete examples rather than vague generalities. Which culture has no aesthetic? Which culture does not define beauty in its own way? Which culture does not celebrate examples of the best expression of its tenets? To be really schoolyard about it, put up or shut up.

Did I say that some cultures have no aesthetic sense? Please tell me where.

I ask again this simple question: why do you connect aesthetic and art?

If I follow you, as long as a picture does not show some "aesthetic" or "beauty", it has nothing to do with art. A rather restrictive point of view, isn't it?

If you want, we can list photographers who, according to you, are not artist. and I start with one of my favorite: Duane Michals. Are his pictures (and his series) based on aesthetic? Is he an "artist" or not?

And we can continue with a short list: Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus, Gene Smith, Josef Koudelka' s pictures? Is "beauty" the reason they are well-known or do they share a quality beyond aesthetic?

Are my exemples concrete enough now?

 

[jovo]

Did I say that some cultures have no aesthetic sense? Please tell me where.

?

Sorry Dali. I was conflating your post with CatLABS.. No, you didn't say that that some cultures have no aesthetic sense.

 

[CatLABS]

Catlabs

I very much resent connecting such insane drivel with my post.

That's my cue to leave this thread.

I would very much appreciate it if you would edit your post to remove my quote.

Thank you!

I am sorry you think that what Zizek and Stockhausen have to say about art is "insane drivel", but it was directly related to your comment. Zizek is considered to be one of the greatest and most prolific philosopher living, certainly he is well respected, and has interesting things to say, especially about art and society.

As you asked, i did go back to see if it could be edited, in the vein of forum civility, but alas, too much time has elapsed. I am sure a moderator would be happy to oblige if you ask.

 

[CatLABS]

I ask again this simple question: why do you connect aesthetic and art?

That came out of the online dictionary quoted earlier.

 

[Dali]

That came out of the online dictionary quoted earlier.

What was quoted from this online dictionary are definitions of culture and aesthetic, that's all. It does not mean that art is another word for aesthetic or is even inclusive of it.

 

[Alan Klein]

The thing about most art is that it has no intrinsic value. It does nothing and you can do nothing with it. It just hangs there on the wall or sits on the ground. It has aesthetic value to the viewer who admires it (or doesn't) for what it does to them mentally and spiritually.

Some art though can have a function, like architectural art; a building for example. But even there, the "beauty" part of it serves no function other than aesthetics for the eye.

 

[MattKing]

Some art though can have a function, like architectural art; a building for example. But even there, the "beauty" part of it serves no function other than aesthetics for the eye.

If you spend any time around mathematicians, you will discover that one of the ways they evaluate the quality of mathematical work is by examining its "elegance". A truly elegant proof will be more likely to be appreciated, supported and adopted.

Mathematical elegance is certainly a question of aesthetics, but in this case the aesthetics have more than a subjective value. An elegant proof tends to stand the test of time - it is more likely to be independently verifiable.

It may be that mathematical elegance, like great art, is intrinsically valuable and useful, but for reasons that are difficult to explain.