‘art’ VS. ‘Art’
a couple days (months?) ago, caleb ross was giving us his thoughts on what constitutes art and Art (notice the capital ‘A’). in short, he relays that ‘art,’ while it may be personally relevant, adds more to one’s decor than to global conscience. and, ‘Art’ inherits “proper noundom” (caleb’s words) because of its social, political, or otherwise ‘greater’ importance.
i believe that art, generally, is quite subjective, and what is important, what most distinguishes the two is audience relationship. it is possible that one person may have no reaction at all to a particular piece of art, and another may be profoundly moved by it. and even though one may completely fall in love with that art, there may be no other significance, no meaning, no assets gained by the greater good or that global conscience (or consciousness, even). another governing aspect, i believe, is the artist’s motivation: the compelling force, the passion behind the creation. (here, we are getting closer to subject of the post) take arts and crafts, for example. each time i visit an arts and crafts fair, i am dissappointed to find no arts, just crafts.
it’s a quick overview, yes, and i would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on the matter. what i am posting, is what caleb’s commentary initially reminded me: Komar and Melamid’s project at the Dia Center for the Arts. There, they posed the question, “what if art was made for the general public?” but is it not? surely, we have all seen the same manufactured framed prints sold at department stores: cafe style canvases, novelty signs, the B/W photo of a small girl in which her hat remains pink……. the list goes on.
Komar and Melamid took it another step, though. they partnered with a survey team and set out to find what people most wanted in their artwork, and what they least wanted. questions of color, subject matter, size, and more were answered in 14 countries, and via the internet. from these questions and answers, they created 30 paintings. each country’s (and the web’s) most and least wanted artwork. above, we see the two created from the American survey. so with topics in mind, the question is this: would these paintings be Art? or merely art?
thoughts on what constitutes art aside, i find their project compelling, intriguing. i found it remarkable how similar many countries’ most wanted paintings were (places like holland not withstanding). and i agree with many of my friends, that the least wanted paintings, as a general statement, seem to be more creative, to contain more substance, even, as artwork goes. but remember, shawn, these surveys were done of the general population (ah, yes, the general population). not of artists, or of collectors, specifically. and arguably, the survey size wasn’t a significantly large proportion of that general public. (1001 americans were surveyed for this project.) Still, the paintings for Turkey, USA, Iceland, Russia, and France are all radically similar. Nearly identical.
perhaps it doesn’t answer the question of what constitutes art, or Art. and if Art is a single work, from inspiration to creation, by an artist, regardless of intrinsic, existential, or global meaning, then it basically just shows us what people use to decorate their livingrooms and bathrooms. but perhaps there is a question answered. one that may have not even been asked. perhaps it shows us how few of us there are, that can string logic from arbitrariness, find meaning in the abstract, and not only crave, but live with a pure necessity for creativity. follow the masses and you may find a great number of men chewing and spewing the rhetoric of one leader. but if you are truly searching for knowledge, you may be lucky enough to find many individuals who can help you discover the questions you should be asking yourself.
you can find komid and melamar’s projects here: http://awp.diaart.org/km/. along with the paintings, they have also created a shorter project: the most/least wanted song. check it out. (Also, caleb, if i have misquoted or misrepresented you in any way, pleas correct me.)
Denis Dutton in THE ART INSTINCT would say that actually, no, those manufactured framed prints, even though they are exact copies of a piece of art, are primarily decoration. Think about it, people pay millions for original paintings while spending only a few dollars on exact replica prints. Why? Because their is a deeper, even if intangible, connection to the original that cannot be duplicated with the print. There is an “energy” for lack of a smarter word, that comes from the connection between the viewer and the artist, not just the viewer and the art. With ever work of art there are two entities (at least) involved: the artist and the viewer. Prints take the artist out of the equation, leaving the viewer alone.
thanks caleb. you are super smart. that helps to bring more sense to what you were talking about. thanks for helping me to learn more about art. And Art. for decorating, i’ll keep watching hgtv.
Great post, Shawn. This is a topic that has been pondered and argued at great lengths.
I am constantly reminded of the differences between “art” and “craft”. For me art is only Art when some deal of experimentation is going on throughout the process. Once the techniques and subject matter become comfortable for the creator, the art then turns to craft.
Using this definition, all artists would ideally be turning out a piece or two of pure art, then would follow that to pure craft, where the technique and material is handled with ease and grace. Then the artist would pull back and explore something new. This type of cyclic growth and exploration is the only way I know to continually turn out Art.
That being said, sometimes I find a piece of Art that seems to have dropped from the womb of the Mother of Invention herself and fallen at my feet. That grocery list I made last week was beautiful. That one girl, that one time, waved with such grace as the cars passed between us and no one could have framed it better.(Dada-esque isn’t it?)
In the end, I am only certain of two things: Thomas Kinkade constantly churns out Shit which is passed off as Art: and All Is As It Should Be.
JS