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There's nothing wrong with you at all! As a precursor another couple of useful misconceptions to discard: 4. Art must be beautiful, or crafted, or at least 'g

by jmkd 6y ago

There's nothing wrong with you at all! As a precursor another couple of useful misconceptions to discard: 4. Art must be beautiful, or crafted, or at least 'good'. 5. Art has to have meaning. It's useful to look at the early part of the 20th Century to understand modern art. A good painting to start this conversation is The Treachery of Images by Magritte[1] from 1929. On one level it is a simple, acceptable painting of a pipe, with the handwritten label in the painting "This is not a pipe". What is that label doing? It is in some ways telling the truth, this is not a pipe, it is a painting of a pipe. Already we have opened a useful void between object and reality. It is also creating a tension in the painting that was not there before. We have an obvious pipe, and we have a counterclaim immediately following. But both the painting of the pipe and the label disclaiming its pipeness are 'true' in that they were put there by the artist and they are unambiguous in their own right. So the pairing creates an ambiguity that is difficult to resolve. What does the label mean? Do I understand it properly? Is one true and not the other, if so which? What is the sum total of them both? How am I meant to 'read' this, whatever is meant by 'reading'. Many questions emerge, inhabiting a place outside the painting, in the mind of the viewer. Are these questions part of the artwork? Where does the artwork start and stop? Is my reaction part of it? Why couldn't it just say "This is a pipe"? Is this treachery of some kind? (hence the title of the work). Once you have seen that this is something a little different to a 'normal' painting, that it in some way occupies a broader space than simply the dimensions of the physical object, then the door of modern art is ajar and cannot be closed again. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

CerebralCerb 6y ago
"4. Art must be beautiful, or crafted, or at least 'good'. 5. Art has to have meaning." By whose authority can these conceptions be labelled as misconceptions? If art is neither beautiful nor crafted or good in any way, and also has no meaning, it can be argued that it also has no intrinsic value. In that case it is merely an object that is meant to inspire pompous rambling, but so can any object if put on display for the right observers, like in an art exhibit.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >By whose authority can these conceptions be labelled as misconceptions? If art is neither beautiful nor crafted or good in any way, and also has no meaning, it can be argued that it also has no intrinsic value. All 3 can be violated and art can still have value. Playful art might not have any meaning (and surely not any "deep meaning") but still be totally enjoyable (e.g. Louie Louie in rock terms). Badly done/naive art might be perfectly meaningful and touching on the other hand. Not beautiful looking art can also be very meaningful and touching. We don't just enjoy beauty, we can appreciate e.g. a terrible picture from a war even if it's not beautiful. If it doesn't have any of those attributes? Beautiful, well crafted, meaningful? Well, it can still be perfectly enjoyable. There's no deep meaning in Japan Noise Rock, it doesn't take much craft, and it's certainly not what people would call beautiful to listen to. But it can still be very touching, therapeutic even.
- itronitron 6y ago
  I think if you consider them as optional characteristics then it is easier to find Art that is not beautiful or well crafted, and/or has no meaning. For example pretty much all textile or pattern design is devoid of meaning yet some of it falls into the Art category. I believe many artists want to create work that enriches people's lives and they disappear from society (or the art world) in order to limit their exposure to pompous rambling.
- pgcj_poster 6y ago
  A lot of things that aren't beautiful or meaningful can have intrinsic value. There are probably a lot of people here who like Recreational Math: stuff like finding pairs of Amicable numbers. This seems to me like it's only beautiful or meaningful in a similar way to contemporary art, but it's still intrinsically valuable, even though I don't understand most of it. As another example, if you look through the Guinness Book of World Records, you'll find tons of stuff that isn't "good" but still seems valuable. It's not "good" to have five-foot long fingernails, but I'm still glad that the world has someone in it who does, because it makes it a more varied and interesting place to live.
- jmkd 6y ago
  By the artist's or the viewer's or the displayer's authority. Art can certainly be ugly, produced entirely without technical skill and be labelled 'bad'. It's still art. Value doesn't come from only positive attributes. Likewise it can have no meaning, or none intended, or none available to you. It's still art. We often try and apply objective measurability towards the 'artness' of a thing, which takes us in self-referential circles of decreasing usefulness. When instead we need to let go and accept subjective immeasurability. The only number that can be put on art is its sale value which most will agree is a highly misleading metric by which to understand art's value.
papeda 6y ago
My issue with this kind of extended contemplative analysis is that the actual form of the art becomes less important than the attention paid to it. So the real contribution of museums is not selecting the "right" pieces for display, it's giving them space and a context where people will can quietly shuffle up and look pensively at them for a few minutes. Like, I suspect people can pull this kind of thought-provoking analysis on arbitrary objects given a "this is art" context. It's like a placebo effect. (And like the placebo effect, it's not necessarily bad.)

by jmkd 6y ago

CerebralCerb 6y ago

"4. Art must be beautiful, or crafted, or at least 'good'. 5. Art has to have meaning." By whose authority can these conceptions be labelled as misconceptions? If art is neither beautiful nor crafted or good in any way, and also has no meaning, it can be argued that it also has no intrinsic value. In that case it is merely an object that is meant to inspire pompous rambling, but so can any object if put on display for the right observers, like in an art exhibit.

coldtea 6y ago
>By whose authority can these conceptions be labelled as misconceptions? If art is neither beautiful nor crafted or good in any way, and also has no meaning, it can be argued that it also has no intrinsic value. All 3 can be violated and art can still have value. Playful art might not have any meaning (and surely not any "deep meaning") but still be totally enjoyable (e.g. Louie Louie in rock terms). Badly done/naive art might be perfectly meaningful and touching on the other hand. Not beautiful looking art can also be very meaningful and touching. We don't just enjoy beauty, we can appreciate e.g. a terrible picture from a war even if it's not beautiful. If it doesn't have any of those attributes? Beautiful, well crafted, meaningful? Well, it can still be perfectly enjoyable. There's no deep meaning in Japan Noise Rock, it doesn't take much craft, and it's certainly not what people would call beautiful to listen to. But it can still be very touching, therapeutic even.
itronitron 6y ago
I think if you consider them as optional characteristics then it is easier to find Art that is not beautiful or well crafted, and/or has no meaning. For example pretty much all textile or pattern design is devoid of meaning yet some of it falls into the Art category. I believe many artists want to create work that enriches people's lives and they disappear from society (or the art world) in order to limit their exposure to pompous rambling.
pgcj_poster 6y ago
A lot of things that aren't beautiful or meaningful can have intrinsic value. There are probably a lot of people here who like Recreational Math: stuff like finding pairs of Amicable numbers. This seems to me like it's only beautiful or meaningful in a similar way to contemporary art, but it's still intrinsically valuable, even though I don't understand most of it. As another example, if you look through the Guinness Book of World Records, you'll find tons of stuff that isn't "good" but still seems valuable. It's not "good" to have five-foot long fingernails, but I'm still glad that the world has someone in it who does, because it makes it a more varied and interesting place to live.
jmkd 6y ago
By the artist's or the viewer's or the displayer's authority. Art can certainly be ugly, produced entirely without technical skill and be labelled 'bad'. It's still art. Value doesn't come from only positive attributes. Likewise it can have no meaning, or none intended, or none available to you. It's still art. We often try and apply objective measurability towards the 'artness' of a thing, which takes us in self-referential circles of decreasing usefulness. When instead we need to let go and accept subjective immeasurability. The only number that can be put on art is its sale value which most will agree is a highly misleading metric by which to understand art's value.

papeda 6y ago

My issue with this kind of extended contemplative analysis is that the actual form of the art becomes less important than the attention paid to it. So the real contribution of museums is not selecting the "right" pieces for display, it's giving them space and a context where people will can quietly shuffle up and look pensively at them for a few minutes. Like, I suspect people can pull this kind of thought-provoking analysis on arbitrary objects given a "this is art" context. It's like a placebo effect. (And like the placebo effect, it's not necessarily bad.)