Replies: 6 Comments
on Tuesday, December 28th, jose freitas cruz said
Ausra,
Very interesting question you raised there. Wilber the chicken (previously the horse, I presume?) I subscribe 100% to your first intervention.
The passive audience is unfortunately a global phenomenon we artists are confronted with too often. How to deal with it? I really don’t know if there is a correct way to go about it. I’m no specialist but In the first, insecure, years of my becoming an artist I gave-in to the public’s curiosity and babbled away, then came the years of indignation and sometimes irritation, then the poems and brief accompanying excerpts of philosophical thoughts (at first pertinent to the images and project at hand and then completely off-beat) and what I do now is revert the question to the one posing the question… I ask the asker to tell me what he feels and envisions when he is in the presence of the work he is so curious about. Somehow, sometimes, magic happens… they start babbling away and if you are honest with yourself you discover that they are never wrong however terrifying the things they may see within you or however crude they may express it. This approach has given me a wealth of valuable feed-back that helps me to get on with the project.
on Tuesday, December 14th, Wilber the rooster said
Whoa there Mike. Did you really just say that the only way to achieve 15 minutes of fame is to conform to political correctness? YIKES!
Commercialism of the artist started the dumbing down of America? YIKES again! Andy Warhol started as a commercial artist and ended as one. Mike, do you have any idea of the concurrent art movements in the days of Pop art? By no means was their a lack of depth in American culture in those days.
Pop art was the celebration (or ridicule) of consumerism. This movement was instrumental in the "dumbing down" of America. Minimalism, expressionism, and even abstraction was squashed by Pop art.
If an artist does not strive to improve, which may include changing styles, then they have done nothing else but SELL OUT! Even with your sold out 15 minutes of fame, can you honestly live with yourself as a maker of "fluff"? Obviously, many can, or simply don't know any better, or lack the talent to produce anything else.
As for only artists being able to provide positive feedback.... that's just part of the problem! Everybody is so darn political correct that the "fluff" is complemented alongside the good art! This political correctness goes hand in hand with subjectivity.
Subjectivity and political correctness has stripped critical analysis from art placing an equality between the "fluff" and the good art.
Why say that the public's art education cannot be raised? It was certainly lowered by such things as pop art!
on Tuesday, December 14th, sir_flexalot said
Not all abstract expressionist or conceptual art is bad, but certainly they are the most common excuses for bad art being in good galleries. Please, use common sense. If it looks, feels, etc. like total hooey, then it is! Commercialism is something any artist that loves their craft as they love life can spot 10 miles away.
on Tuesday, December 14th, Mike Fornadley said
The dumbing of america would have been started by the commercialism of the artist. Andy Warhol and such reflecting the lack of depth in american cuture (pop art). Alot of popular artists have taking that stance, rather than challenge the viewer they choose to appease their appetites. So we get alot of fluff when you look at the marketplace in america, term couch art easy on the eye, but nothing upstairs.
Understanding that once you start selling a particular type of product, are you going to change subject matter or style to advance your own artistic goals. Another thing to think about is the political correctness that an artist has to conform to to sell or be recognized. Think of an artist who goes against the grain on social issues to express their inner visions, upsets a particular group or belief system. Chances are that their 15 minutes of fame would be lost.
The concept of educating the public to the standards of what good art is will never happen. That is why other artist's opinion are so sought on this site, we are the only ones that can see past a certain level to provide a positive feedback.
Good thing to know is that this problem is not only relating to the visual arts, how many great musicians and writers are living hand to mouth, while fluff continues to sell.
on Monday, December 13th, Wilber the chicken said
Here, here, the passive's have risen. The last time people actually opened up and said what they saw in a piece of art was when they were viewing abstract expressionism during a Rorschac (sp?) test. The dumbing down of America has been a principle objective of consumerism. Think not, just buy. And to top it off, just buy what everyone else is buying.
"Reading" a piece of art requires thought and imagination. So much easier to just grasp what someone else has said. Titles and labels help to make it that much more easier. Come on, we live in a lazy obese society.
As this country starts to lose its physical overweightedness and realizes that imagination is crucial to developement, I think there will be a mighty increase in one of those labels, ie, abstraction. I don't mean vapid paint splatters, but good abstraction that has been built upon a firm foundation of realism and explores other worlds.
The industrial age was given light through the visions of the abstractionists. No one is seeing much in art these days to comment on. Subjectivity has stripped critical analysis from art placing an equality between the good and bad. In other words, there's a whole lot of crap out there.
....to be continued....
on Monday, December 13th, Walter King said
Ausra,
I think the passive audience is already upon us in the United States. I've noticed in the last 10 to 15 years that in the U.S. art viewers already want to be told what the art is about rather than looking hard for themselves to see what it has to offer. In other parts of the world folks tell me what they see when they look at my art. But in the U.S. it is as if they are afraid to venture a guess. Leaves the artist in a strange state of weightlessness...not knowing if we are communicating through our work or if the audience just isn't very bright or aesthetically sensitive. I've taken to writing poetry as an experimental way of instigating an imaginative insight into my work rather than a straight forward statement these days. Not sure if it is working. It certainly seems to bother the administrators of art. But already seems better than saying something like "my work is about this or that--hope you get it--hope you buy it." Sort of like having to explain a joke. It's never as funny because the joke is in the form of the telling. If the image does not elicit some emotion, thought or idea, memories, etc. for the viewer then I'm not going to reach them by telling them how to feel or think about it.
As for the labels being used? To tell the truth they are outmoded the moment they are attached. I've never fit neatly into any category and always find it hard to choose one when required by a gallery or prospective buyer. Might be better to say something like I belong to "art group A, group B or group Z" instead of Impressionists, Expressionists, Pop Artists, Modern or Post-Neo-Geo-Figurative-Hot-Pop-Deco-Razzle-Dazzle-Anti- This or Pro-That...the labels become so broad as to become meaningless even though they meant something rather specific when first coined. At least with letters and numbers you can identify the artists in each group but without tainting the meaning of the work itself.
As visual artitists we end up fighting the written language for an art form that isn't even about written language.
