During the first class of the semester, we discussed time-based works of art. I found the music video clips to be a helpful beginning to the class. The repetition of motion exemplifies the ideas surrounding the music as well as the beat. As we looked through classic fine art and new media art, we analyzed the use of time and the class reactions.
By the second class I had a new look on art. After reading the article by Bart Rosier, I had a more solid position on the art argument. I discovered that I think of everything as art and that it is determined by the viewer and the artist. Other ideas introduced in class were the ideas that society decides what art is, that it is art if it is displayed as such, and that only something with merit is considered art. The reading was a helpful tool in directing the conversation as were the photographs of major works. For example, when we looked at the Andy Warhol boxes, some of my classmates mentioned the appearance of art based on the metaphor surrounding it, while others considered it art based on the fact that it was sculpted and placed by chance, not necessarily choice.
Steve Mithen regards art as a form of communication. We first looked at a caveman painting in France. The painting, to me, is a work of art because it is made with aesthetic intention and has a form of beauty to some person. The communication only adds to the artistic value because it is sending a message not only to the view but through space and time.
Later, the reading suggests that something is only art if a member of the artistic community has created it. I believe this to be false based on the fact that someone without the intention of creating something to be art, can in fact create art. For example, in class we discussed the possibility that a power plant is a work of art and that the engineer is the artist. Without intention, the engineer has made what some may deem as art. This argument alone brings together the fourth criterion of art being that art has to be made intentionally as art.
The next criterion suggests that all art is a matter of throwing symbols together to communicate. I propose that sometimes something beautiful can communicate an emotion. Just as Rosier stated, the tree in my backyard communicates natural and organic motives making it a symbol of nature. However, this work of art was not planted by an artist with the intention of setting the viewer in a position of an organic emotional state.
Art is a mystery and is read different by each person. It is this mystery which keeps it intriguing.
Why does Bart Rosier make criterion for art when he know that 1) it contradicts itself, and 2) anything can be a work of art?
Does all art necessarily have a direct meaning? Is what the artist communicates from the piece have to mean something to the viewer, as well?
I was a little curious about Andy Warhol's take on the brillo pad boxes. He described what he wanted as "something ordinary" and it had o greatly contrast the typical abstract expressionist paintings of the time.
http://edu.warhol.org/aract_brillo.html
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Good post. I found it interesting how you went through each facet of the conversation and debated the points. Perhaps Bart Rosier is trying to make the task itself absurd and thereby prove that art is essentially undefinable, or at least the meaning is always changing.
ReplyDeleteDoes all art necessarily have a direct meaning? Is what the artist communicates from the piece have to mean something to the viewer, as well?
All art does not have a direct meaning, and in fact often it can be obscure and hard to read. Andy Warhol was a good person to look up since he played with these notions/expectations with his work quite a bit.
I like how you pose a the question "Is a Power Plant a work of art and is the engineer the artist?" At first glance I would say neither one is art or artist. But if someone were to paint a picture of the power plant, that is how it becomes art. Simply because someone appreciated the plant enough to immortalize it.
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