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04/24/2008: "LET’S DO AWAY WITH “ART” -- Or I’ve got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts."

ART:
1: skill acquired by experience, study, or observation 2 a: a branch of learning: (1): one of the humanities (2)plural : liberal arts b archaic : learning, scholarship3: an occupation requiring knowledge or skill 4 a: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced b (1): fine arts (2): one of the fine arts (3): a graphic art 5 a archaic : a skillful plan b: the quality or state of being artful 6: decorative or illustrative elements in printed matter
synonyms art, skill, cunning, artifice, craft mean the faculty of executing well what one has devised. Art implies a personal, unanalyzable creative power . skill stresses technical knowledge and proficiency . cunning suggests ingenuity and subtlety in devising, inventing, or executing . Artifice suggests technical skill especially in imitating things in nature . Craft may imply expertness in workmanship .




www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary



Art is the product of aesthetic human creativity as we artists use the term most generally. But I’m sure someone will argue with that statement. There is a group of anti-aestheticists out there who disagree with the term beauty. I have a favorite button I sometimes wear to openings that says “Art? Why not Bob or George?”

So why don’t we just quit using the word art altogether? I mean why have categories for anything for that matter? Don’t they just get in the way of progress, of beauty, of art? I mean why even have a category for certain kinds of human endeavor at all? To put something in this category or that category…well doesn’t it hinder us from seeing that perhaps the same item could also fit into another category just as easily? Why pigeon hole such an important idea as art?

I mean, suppose we put an ice cream cone in the category of deserts. That would seem appropriate wouldn’t it? But someone might come along and say “but it is also generally a food and should fit into that category.” Yes. This is true. And someone else might come along and suggest that an ice cream cone might also fit into that category of tools with handles since the cone is really a delivery device to get ice cream from the counter to ones mouth. Also true I respond. While someone else comes along and suggests that it fits also in the category of something cold. Someone else might complain that we must define cones as those with and without ice cream in them. I suppose so. And then those categories in which the cone carries one, two or even three scoops of Ice cream. And those categories that are commercially packaged against those that are hand scooped from behind the counter or from the container straight out of the ice box at home. In fact someone else might categorize an ice cream cone as one of those foods that are not healthy due to the amount of fat and sugar and excess calories. While another might categorize it by it’s favorable adjectives, tasty, yummy, creamy…or those of higher income might say that only the best ice cream is really the only ice cream. Those other, cheap, tasteless brands are not really ice cream at all. Certainly sherbert falls into another category wouldn’t you say? Only the best ice cream is ice cream.

Ultimately it is all of the above. And we can simplify our discussion of categories by simply stating that ice cream is a food defined by the category desert. From there it has many aspects that fall into other categories with differing qualities and we can agree with all of these while still calling ice cream a desert food. After that and depending on the context of discussion we can use any of the more specific or collateral definitions and categorizations that fit. They all hold true given their context.



Now the human brain naturally and intuitively recognizes and uses categories. It is simply part of the pattern recognition ability that in part drives how we know what we know and the words we use for categories help us communicate our ideas. For instance we know that some things are poisonous to eat and other things are good for us to eat. These are two categories no one wants to blur for the sake of their health and safety (although I‘ll say more about this later). Our pattern recognition ability is naturally pre-wired into our DNA but can be enhanced and made more sophisticated, more articulated, using logical assumptions and some training. We do this in elementary school when we show students a fork, a hammer, a shovel, a cup and a coconut. The teacher asks which of these does not belong with this group? Of course the answer is the coconut because even though all of the above are manipulated by hands only the coconut does not have a handle and is not man made. It also is the only one in the list that belongs to another category called food.



However I could invent a category in which a food might belong to the category mentioned above. Let’s say the group is made of a fork, a shovel, a ball and an ice cream cone (single dip). Now the food item does in fact belong to the group of tools with handles since the cone itself is a kind of handle ( and is also made by humans by the way.) While the ball, although made by humans and manipulated by hands does not have a handle itself nor is it a tool for moving or containing and in fact falls into quite another category altogether…toys. Therefore the ball does not fit into the category. On the other hand the ball and the coco nut might belong together in a category called Spherical things without handles including balls of twine or yarn, certain fruits and vegetables, sporting balls of various sorts and any other kind of ball that is spherical in design. You see a thing can be in many categories at once. And it is not really very hard for the human mind to make the fine distinctions between several categories selecting those items that belong in this one or that one or both without much trouble. Funny…we are not confused by this sort of complex interchange of categories and are capable of holding more than one idea in our heads at the same time in doing so.

So it seems to me that we have tried very hard to undo the meaning of the word art. Or perhaps it is that we have tried very hard to enlarge its meaning to include almost anything if not everything…to the point that the word seems to have no meaning at all. Kind of the opposite of the 400 mythical Inuit words for snow.
( www.mendosa.com/snow )

Now remember that meaning is something we humans ascribe to a thing or an idea via words. When I use the word ice cream everyone who knows what that word means in English understands what I am talking about at least to a general degree. But apparently when someone uses the word art it becomes highly debatable what the word actually or even generally means. And if I say this or that is art someone will undoubtedly say no it isn’t and give reason why. Or if I say this or that is not art someone will say of course it is and give their reasons. Now the reasons may or may not have much to do with either the general or specific use or meaning of the word art. But that doesn’t stop them.

For instance : It would not be logical to say “just because you say a ball does not fit into the category of tools with handles doesn’t mean balls do not have the right to call themselves tools with handles. You know a ball is a tool in various games in which hands are used. Everyone has the democratic right to freedom of speech so a ball could call itself a tool with a handle if it wanted to.” Or “Your definition of the distinction of those items as tools with a handle does not include items that are also manipulated by hand and at least in spirit could be said to be handled. So you are wrong.” Or “ Some of the best tools never got handles, some baskets don’t have handles for instance, or sunglasses which have nothing specifically designed to be held by the hands but rather by the ears… so what do you call those long things on either side: eardles? And what about ear phones for that matter?”

A composer, a playwrite, a novelist, a musician, an actor… none of these artists are expected to do anything but what they do. If in fact they do some other art form it is celebrated. But visual artists…painters for instance are challenged when they are in college, especially most grad programs to push into some other area…installation, word art, conceptual art or possibly video. I’ve heard all sorts of statements from faculty from other colleges about how painting is passe, out of fashion, dead. My experience is nothing ever dies. On the other hand there is a large sense of confusion about what painting is, in part because there was a season when photographers wanted the same status as painters and actively lobbied gallerists and museum curators to see the semblance. The blurring of borders between one category and another had begun. And while there is still some good that comes from this kind of experiment it is reactionary and needs a catalyst or establishment against which to react or to focus its attention. The blurred border movement needs clear borders to blurr. Anti-aesthetes need a philosophy of aesthetics to be contrary. And Post-Modernists need tradition, history and formalism to deconstruct. Without their doppelgangers these movements have no momentum…they have no positive core concept of their own. They are simple criticisms, sarcasms and cynicisms.

Avant Guarde once meant to advance. We really no longer speak of advancing, or stretching the envelope, or the cutting edge…today being cutting edge means your work ‘looks’ contemporary, or whatever term is the most up to date…I thought it was honest for a little while when I heard the word ‘dodgy’ being passed around in New York circles to describe young artists who were trying to thread their way through the ideas of the day. Between not looking like some other artist doing something similar, changing the words to the manifesto so that another version seems more original, pretending not to be original on the one hand while trying desperately to do something no one else is doing, this dance of the origins is more like a game of dodge ball.



We seem to be circling around something rather than moving that something forward.
But remember that the ball and the coconut belong together in a category called spherical things without handles.

Replies: 17 Comments

on Friday, May 9th, walt said

Since yesterday, over 31, 000 letters have gone out from our Orphan Works advocacy site.

Q: What can we do next?

1. Write the House Judiciary Committee. We’ve set up a special alert to contact members of this important committee.

Go to our Take Action/Alert site: capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/
Look for the sample letter labeled "Contact House Judiciary Committee NOW" and send it.

If your Representative is not a member of the House Judiciary Committee, this will send him a message asking him to contact his colleagues on that Committee on your behalf, urging them to oppose the bill.

2. Ask for support from family and friends:

Please ask your friends and family (5 to 10 others) who support your creative work to also go to the site.
They can follow the instructions to easily send a message of opposition to this reckless bill.
Look for the sample letter labeled "For Supporters of Visual Artists - Wrong to Weaken
Copyright Law" and send it.

3. Spread the word to the public: Photosharing on Web will now be at risk:

Please alert your friends who post photos to the web their personal property will be at risk.
Look for the sample letter labeled “For the Image-Making Public - Protect Personal
Property”and send it.

For more information about the Orphan Works Act of 2008:

IPA Statement to House Subcommittee March 20, 2008:
www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00261
IPA Senate Mark-up Comments April 30, 2008: www.illustratorspartnership.org/ow_docs
Geneva/ May 7, 2008 Orphan Works Bill Catches Global Attention/ Intellectual Property Watch/
www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1028
MP3 Interview: www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html
YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=CqBZd0cP5Yc

Please post this message or forward it to any interested party.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
To have your name removed from this mailing list, send a reply email with “Remove Name” in the subject line. You will receive verification.

on Wednesday, May 7th, walt said

we interupt this blog once more for an important message from the Illustrators Partnership in reference to the Orphan Works bill currently going through Congress.

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Take Action: Don't Let Congress Orphan Our Work

We’ve set up an online site for visual artists to e-mail their Senators and Representatives with one click.

This site is open to professional artists, photographers and any member of the image-making public.


We’ve provided sample letters from individuals representing different sectors of the visual arts.

If you’re opposed to the Orphan Works act, this site is yours to use.


For international artists and our colleagues overseas, we’ve provided a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write.




2 minutes is all it takes to write Congress and protect your copyright:

capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

Please forward this message to every artist you know.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.
___________________________________________________________________________
To have your name removed from this mailing list, send a reply email with “Remove Name” in the subject line. You will receive verification.

on Sunday, April 27th, walt said

No offence taken Thomas...and I will try to be nicer to accountants in the future as well. If it makes you feel any better I was once an ice cream man...you know those guys who drive around in a truck ringing a bell or playing some tape on a loop with a jingle selling ice cream to all the boys and girls.

Jose, you hit the nail on the head when you brought out the fact that to shoot for average is to sell ones self short. Average today as compared to average 25, 50, 100 years ago? It is much much lower indeed. I just came back from an art league show held at a small museum in smallish city near Columbus...and while there were a few really good pieces in the show (maybe a dozen out of 45 works) the local historical artists in the collection of the museum were heads and shoulders above the average work of the contemporary art league. Again with a few exceptions and the caveat that the museum selected only a few from a hundred years of the best locally.

I tell my students that anyone can walk in to a class from off the street and make an average "C". For a real artist a "C" is a flunking grade. It'll pass you so you can go on to take the next level of classes but don't think you've accomplished anything great. I can teach nearly anyone to draw better than when they came to me, to use color with some success, to do better design...doesn't make them a great artist. Just better than they were before. Greatness takes something else added to the mix.

And, as always there is that caveat...while to blurr the borders is I beleive very often an excuse to not do better work-- every once in a while someone comes along with that mission in their head and does something spectacular. But it is rare indeed. Excellence is quite a rare commodity today.

on Sunday, April 27th, jose said

Walt, a good blog, and great comments that make us think about the mediocrity that has set-in and rules not only the world of Art today but quite frankly most aspects of life from the politics we choose to rule over our destinies [each one of us in our separate corners of the world] to the moral standards TV champions and every average joe seems to aspire to. Joe has acquired the, almost constitutional, right to stardom: Joe can be a musician if he pleases, an artist, why in heavens not? A politician, a critic with a voice [just as me right this moment on the www], a novelist... and the system endorses it. Slowly and gradually the benchmarks have come down so that we can glorify this thing we mistake for Democracy all the while forgetting that we should have gone about it in a completely different way – setting the benchmarks at the level of excellence and investing harder at pushing joe beyond average.

on Saturday, April 26th, Thomas Greaves said

On Saturday April 26th Walt said: "Thomas,......This was a lot of tongue in cheek....."
Well that explains why it appeared to me to be such a load of nonsense. Forgive me for making the mistake of believing you were serious. It perhaps derives from me not being American, and from my once being an accountant. Did I just admit to that? OMG>>>>my reputation is shot!
And for my light reading, I browse the 'critiques' at WetCanvas.com......always good for a laugh! Yes, I used to think that was serious stuff too until not so long ago.

on Saturday, April 26th, walt said

Ellen,

Snow balls (Snow cones) are also a treat with shaved ice and colored flavorings in a paper cone cup. See...there is a categorical conglomeration right there...they are both sweet treats one is an icey treat and the other is a lovely coconut pastry. One has a handle and one does not but falls into the sub category category of sweet wrapped commercial treats. Whereas the other fall into the sub-category of freshly made frozen treats. (By the way, for you history buffs, snow cones are the precursors of modern day slushies made with crushed ice and sweet colored syrups.)

on Saturday, April 26th, Walt said

Thomas, you're taking things too seriuosly. This was a lot of tongue in cheek response to things stated in the past. Point in fact don't you do any lite reading?

on Saturday, April 26th, Thomas Greaves said

This has to be some of the worst verbal diaorrhea that I have encountered so far this year. Words for words sake, with no real content.

on Friday, April 25th, Ellen said

I like the idea of moving back and forth among catagories. I also truly appreciate artists who use different "catagories" or schools in their work: Klimt, Sargent, Turner, all used elements of varying styles to create a unique form of self-expression.
Snowballs are those coconut covered cakes with marshmello centers! Forgive me Walt: I love your dedication to examining art for your own devotion and dedication and to give the rest of us your insights! Your blogs are always a good and thought provoking read!

on Friday, April 25th, walt said

another Orphan works alert:

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

Both House and Senate versions of the Orphan Works Act of 2008 can be downloaded from the IPA homepage:

illustratorspartnership.org/

Many groups are coming together to oppose this bill. We’re preparing letters you can customize and send to your representatives through our push-button link. Please stay tuned and we’ll give you the tools we need to make our voices heard.

For additional background on Orphan Works, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

on Friday, April 25th, walt said

Andrew, it is true that in general artists tend to disdain categories because they feel limited by them. But if we remember that all categories are momentary, often created and used for a specific explanation at a fleeting moment in time and that we often belong to several categories at once and the next time we'll use one of the other categories we wouldn't fear them so much. But the idea that we must open categories of quality to include lessor qualities is cheapening our art. Whether we are working at a high or low level it cheapens us. If at a low level (and you are dying to be recognized) remember that to lower the quality bar is to allow work even less accomplished than you will be one day. To equalize all qualities is to destroy quality all together.

We discriminate all the time. Let's not fool our selves or fall into denial about this. By prefering any work over another we are discriminating. "it moves me more than the other" she says. That is a discriminating remark. I'd rather discriminate in a way that raises the bar frankly.

on Friday, April 25th, Andrew said

If the meaning of the word 'art' has been enlarged to include lesser accomplishmente, be suspicious. Could mere commerce have something to do with it?

on Friday, April 25th, walt said

Snow cones! Wow. Another one I didn't think of. We used to call them Snow Balls when I was a kid in Baltimore.

Ellen. It is a myth about the 400 Inuit words for snow. There are far fewer than that...I can't remember, perhaps less than 20. There is a link in the blog to a site that discusses and dismisses the myth.

www.mendosa.com/snow

Mostly I wanted to get across two concepts...one is that we do use categories quite regularly and move between them quite easily. We all learned to distinguish between categories early using those very assignments from the blog starting around 2nd or 3rd grade as I recall. "Which one does not belong" assignments were my favorite back then.

The second idea is that we are really quite capable of holding several competing and even contradictory ideas or concepts in our minds at once. Whether we pay attention to the ability or not if you think about driving or walking around town during any busy peak period in the day you'll have any number of thoughts winding through your mind at once. It gets tougher the older we get but still quite amazing. I think we can be quite specific on the one hand about art and still be open to all the possibilities and variations when the time comes. I know I often sound like a snob to some but in point of fact if you were to do a gallery or museum walk with me you'd be surprized at how broad my biases stretch. And I would argue that those who seem to think I'm an Art Nazi are probably much more closed minded than they appear in type. Things are not always as they seem. One of the first rules of obvservation and social interaction. Look harder.

on Friday, April 25th, Ellen said

Walt- I have always hated catagories. I love words, but long ago discovered, that like anything else, words can be manipulated to mean whatever the speaker or writer, reader or listener decides a word should/can mean. Therefore, the word "art" can actually mean anything or nothing. To me it has always meant the work that humans create. That's VERY broad. Therefore, I narrowed it (for myself) to mean the carefully crafted work that expresses the human spirit. I then narrowed it in terms of eliminating all works that expressed areas of thought that I did not want to confront in terms of "art." Convoluted, that! For example there was an art exhibit on the campus of Columbia University that I saw on Tuesday. It consisted of a row of coffins representing the dead in the Iraqi war. There was a person ringing a bell and another person reading names and dates. This was a "performance art exhibit." I do not shy away from world events and I appreciate images like Picasso's Guernica; however, this particular protest againts the Iraqi war did not really do it for me personally as "art."
On another note: even though there are 400 Inuit words for snow, there are other uses for the word snow, (I'm not sure about all 400) in cooking, vernacular, drug culture, photography, etc. Personally, I perfer ice cream to snow cones.

on Thursday, April 24th, walt said

I'll post the next open letter as son as Brad sends it out.

Sugar free...I didn't even think about that.

on Thursday, April 24th, Mark said

Well isn't the ball its own handle, so it is a ball and a handle all at once. A balldle.

I must confess Walt that I am very upset by your latest blog, you left out something that to my mind is probably one of the greates problems with the world today. Low fat and sugar free ice cream. Yes I know they have their purpose but somethings just should not be tampered with.

On a serious note; I am poised to push whatever buttons needed (and as often as needed) to stop the Orphan Works Act.

on Thursday, April 24th, walt said

SORRY TO INTERUPT THIS BLOG! FOLLOWING IS A MESSAGE FROM BRAD HOLLAND AND CYNTHIA TURNER FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS PARTNERSHIP CONCERNING THE ORPHAN WORKS BILL I'VE BEEN WRITING ABOUT.

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

The Orphan Works Act of 2008 will be officially released momentarily.

The language in the draft confirms our warnings. If this bill passes, you’ll be forced to clear all your secondary licensing rights through at least two government certified databases – or risk orphaning your art.

Despite its masquerade as the "last resort" to search for a rights owner, these databases will likely become the only source many users will rely on for finding a rights owner. Reason: it will give users the legal right to infringe any copyright not in the databases.

We’re working with our attorney now to prepare opposition letters.

We have contracted CapWiz, a service that will allow you to send these letters to Congress with a push of the button.

CapWiz will also provide us with "digital stickers" that anyone else - organizations, individual artists, blogs, etc. - can put on their sites that create a direct link to the command center to write their Congressman and Senators to defeat this radical change to U.S. Copyright law

Please stay tuned and we’ll tell you in a day or so what you can do to register your opposition.

For additional background on Orphan Works, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.