art opinions pls
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- nmdtht0
but you still need galleries, shows, publications, etc. if you want to make any money with your 'art'
- reluct0
That's why I called it devaluation.
- nmdtht0
another thing i've noticed - at least in galleries around nyc - is that many pieces that incorporate technology and get exhibited seem to get gallery time because they require a significant monetary investment. i'm thinking of like giant LED cubes that cycle through various images and react to the viewer's location. or a wall of shells, each mounted to an independent pivot that allows each shell to follow the viewer's movement
- nmdtht0
another thing i've noticed - at least in galleries around nyc - is that many pieces that incorporate technology and get exhibited seem to get gallery time because they require a significant monetary investment. i'm thinking of like giant LED cubes that cycle through various images and react to the viewer's location. or a wall of shells, each mounted to an independent pivot that allows each shell to follow the viewer's movement
- reluct0
Good observation. When art is discussed people always ignore the fact that most art serves the purpose of a luxury product. Which means that the client needs to understand why it's valuable.
- reluct0
Good observation. When art is discussed people always ignore the fact that most art serves the purpose of a luxury product. Which means that the client needs to understand why it's valuable.
- nmdtht0
i see your point :)
- MrAbominable0
Re Nmdtht's earlier comments:
" it seems that the difference between what is seen as art and what is seen as design is simply a matter of context. and context can change (you wouldn't have found a poster by, e.g., alphonse mucha in a museum in 1910, but now...). "
Not a question of context as much as construct. A Mucha poster can be a beautiful object, as anything well designed: Eames chair, A4, Persian rug, Powerbook, etc. Out of context, and beyond their use value, these objects are still beautiful but because of design, and partly for their power of innovation (and or fashion as in the style of illustion in a Mucha piece.)
Museums merely house objects, ie the Armani show at the Guggenheim, or the Shackelton exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. It doesn't make these items fine art. The institution elevates the object to icon and acts as a repository for the public trust.
"as for new media pushing fine art - sure, i think you can make a case for that. i also find it interesting how traditional media has incorporated the look and feel of digital imagery (oil paintings that look like they've been pixel stretched in ps, or paintings that look like they were done in illustrator)"
Yes you can find a thread of the culture of software and the internet in fine art practices but the reality is that faux vector graphics or the fashion of Richter in enlarged .jpgs however none of these things have impacted contemporary art practice. It's still a debate about image or pop-culture which have been in vogue for 30 years by the contemporary usage or longer if you consider Modernism a reaction to pop-culture.
- nmdtht0
“Not a question of context as much as construct. A Mucha poster can be a beautiful object, as anything well designed: Eames chair, A4, Persian rug, Powerbook, etc. Out of context, and beyond their use value, these objects are still beautiful but because of design, and partly for their power of innovation (and or fashion as in the style of illustion in a Mucha piece.)”
i think it is a question of context. a painting out of context and w/o the art institution is just paint on canvas. museums, galleries and the like do more than just house objects - they validate them and make them collectible or ‘culturally significant’ - whether you're talking about a photo, sculpture, chair, video, online performance or a tea pot. the medium isn't the issue. it's the perception created and validated by the art community that provides artistic significance and value. often, as you said, as a result of recognition of innovation.
- nmdtht0
mr. a:
also, i'm not convinced that "there simply isn't any art that has benefitted from the internet." something like the weliveinpublic project couldn't have been executed w/o the internet.
- ribit0
another online art/photography project:
http://www.mirrorproject.com
- toulouz0
thanks for continuing discussion, all points are noted.
it does seem lots of internet art is not about making money. but galleries are gettng to purchase some internet installations or sites for public viewing therin, cheaply i might add.
just as the minimalists were able to get their art work made by their instructions to factories, isnt it simiilar that a software artist writes his coding, and gets the technology to make the art. or is this different?
- MrAbominable0
"i think it is a question of context. a painting out of context and w/o the art institution is just paint on canvas. museums, galleries and the like do more than just house objects - they validate them and make them collectible or ‘culturally significant’ - whether you're talking about a photo, sculpture, chair, video, online performance or a tea pot. the medium isn't the issue. it's the perception created and validated by the art community that provides artistic significance and value. often, as you said, as a result of recognition of innovation. "
It appears from the above that you are arguing that fine art needs the museum to validate itself. I guess my opinion of museums is less optimistic than that. It's been my experience that they purchase by committee and only after an artist has been established in the public eye and there is a demand for the work. I believe that a work of fine art exists between the object and the viewer. To paraphrase the above, it is after all 'just paint'.
I agree that context can be a kind of fashion and in that seem innovative but so far as historical relativity or quality the western world is pretty revisionist about culling out the hype and getting to the marrow. It just takes us some time to get there.
So far as commodity goes and its validation, the earthwork and happening artists of the 60s/70s went a good distance towards creating works that escaped market value. We still don't know collectively what to do Smithson's Spiral Jetty.
"just as the minimalists were able to get their art work made by their instructions to factories, isnt it simiilar that a software artist writes his coding, and gets the technology to make the art. or is this different?"
Fabrication in the arts isn't new. The Atelier system has been in place in some form for 500 years. Foundries, have always been a removal for the sculptor. The difference between that and what you're looking at in technology is that the resolution on monitors is greatly cheaper than photo reproduction which in turn is far worse than a physical object. Additionally, the tools within the medium are incredibly crude compared to what exists in other mediums. In order for the Internet to make an original contribution to the fine art community it needs to mature to point where you don't have to wrestle with multiple browsers or variable bandwidth etc.
The medium is still far in its infancy. Portfolio websites are a very convenient form of marketing. It hasn't changed the 'how and why' that works are made. The web will eventually develop its own unique tools that allow it to do things that can't be found in clay or paint and in those areas it will eventually contribute significantly.
- nmdtht0
"I believe that a work of fine art exists between the object and the viewer."
i guess we're just coming at this from different directions. that fine art needs a community -not necessarily a museum- to exist as such. it needs a group of people who say "X is significant". the more people who agree, the more artistically credible a piece becomes. the more a piece is marketed, the more people agree. even smithson's earthworks can't escape this. without a community that takes his work seriously as art work, you've just got a bunch of rocks in a lake. unless you believe they have intrinsic worth.
"The difference between that and what you're looking at in technology is that the resolution on monitors is greatly cheaper than photo reproduction which in turn is far worse than a physical object."
in what way is it worse?
"The web will eventually develop its own unique tools that allow it to do things that can't be found in clay or paint and in those areas it will eventually contribute significantly"
i agree w/ you that variables associated w/ online delivery can make a viewer's experience unpredictable, but is that necessarily prevent the medium from contributing to artistic endeavours? the web already possesses its own tools - e.g., the ability to be seen anywhere at anytime, the ability to change over time, the ability to interact w/ a viewer.
your right, though. over time our ability to make use of these tools will improve as the technology and infrastructure improves.
- waynepixel0
Art ends when the earth blows up and takes us with it.
But we might be all space men and women by then so maybe not. Art and Idears just keep going.
- MrAbominable0
"the more people who agree, the more artistically credible a piece becomes. the more a piece is marketed, the more people agree. even smithson's earthworks can't escape this. without a community that takes his work seriously as art work, you've just got a bunch of rocks in a lake. unless you believe they have intrinsic worth.”
I don’t think that art is as much of a variable as is commonly championed . Pop art as commuted by Warhol denigrated the dada message of found art. Made it sort of ‘arbitrary’. People like Smithson and Gordon Matta Clark or any of the fluxus or performance people weren’t so concerned with the public opinion as they were in participation. Many of these pieces like the ice-cuttings were only casually, if at all, documented. Andy Goldsworthy is a more heavily marketed successor in the evolutioniary chain of these works. I would like his work better if I knew that these things existed more as objects than as pretty photographs.
"The difference between that and what you're looking at in technology is that the resolution on monitors is greatly cheaper than photo reproduction which in turn is far worse than a physical object."
“in what way is it worse? “
By this I mean that at present the resolution runs a poor 3rd place. It would be nice if pixels got smaller rather than screens getting bigger. The viewing experience is pretty limited online. Why look at a 72ppi image on screen if you can look at a 35mm print or better yet see the object that the photo was of? Resolution is not a strong point for web based artwork.
“i agree w/ you that variables associated w/ online delivery can make a viewer's experience unpredictable, but is that necessarily prevent the medium from contributing to artistic endeavours? the web already possesses its own tools - e.g., the ability to be seen anywhere at anytime, the ability to change over time, the ability to interact w/ a viewer. “
Precisely. I think that the internet’s contribution will be in the mutability and accessibility that it provides. Those elements it has in spades over old media. There isn’t a fine art yet from that realm that has impacted on the arts community.
Looks like we’re finding some common ground.
- nmdtht0
eric - indeed. i guess we'll just have to wait and see what forms or applications artists will develop.
toulouz - keep us posted on how your thesis turns out.
- toulouz0
yes i agree with much of what you say. The galleries decide what is art although we can still question it, but it's more or less decided even if we dont agree.
Tonight i am going to the private view in Milton Keynes of the Sarah Lucas exhibition which opens tomorrow.
I will have an open mind but I guess I wont actually like it much.
We have talked about internet art without being specific.
what do you think of this?This one fascinates me and is a bit different imo
- chilaquil0
I didn't read the whole thread 'cause I don't really have the time, so I apologize in advance if any of this was mentioned.
Here's an interesting link:
http://www.averagecitizen.org/
It's a bizarre swedish art project that seeks to manifest social engineering as art. Its very Orwellian and seemingly twisted, but at the same time incredibly interesting. I first found out about it when I saw an installation of it in a museum in Mexico City. There were a bunch of flash and after effects presentations showing how this was to be developed. New media was instrumental in this project (which if you ask me is ground breaking).
I had a super lengthy and heated conversation with an artist friend of mine on whether the critic was actually more important than the artist. Ironically, him being the artist, was of the opinion that the critic had more importance. I think he had a point, although I don't completely agree with him. We talked at length about Duchamp's urinal. The thing was unanimously rejected, even though the requirements for that show were only that you pay the entry fee. However HE defended the urinal, without saying it was him who did it (was submitted under another name). He played "critic" of his own work, without saying it was his. But originally, the work was rejected by all critics.
My point is, that if the critic is more important than the artist, the artist can always become a critic to gain credibility... and isn't that some sort of performance art...?Anyway, I'm just rambling..
- o0o0
toulouz, I couldn't really look at your link ... I'm still it work, and a big hairy ass wouldn't go over too well :P
I'm surprised your instructors don't know what you're talking about. What kind of school are you going to? I haven't been in school for a few years, but I had the impression that this 'new media' thing was all over the place.
Anyway this guy does interesting stuff: http://www.jtnimoy.com/ I'm pretty fascinated by this whole thing too. I studied painting in school, then learned to program after that. Even before I learned to program I was interested in merging a basically intuitive painting process with the more logical parts of my thinking...
chilaquil... that project does look interesting.. although I couldn't see what was so important about the new media in it. Seemed like they were just using it to provide a nice slick appearance. Could have been done without it, right?
And critics are crap. They are part of the elitist consumerist art marketing machine that serves wealthy snobs with too much money on they hands. :P (do I sound bitter?) nah, it's not that bad... but I really do think they talk out their ass mostly.
In the days before mass production and consumerism people used to make things for their homes. Some made it with better craft than others. That's art.