I obviously subscribe to your statement, El Topo. Arthouse or a creation of an artist doesn’t equal art. I don’t find anything alluring in an artist defecating for ten minutes, even if it is supposed as a performance or any other form of art.
And there is rarely any ilk of art if it is not transgressive in some way.
But the rules can be changed, and they change in art over the years, decades, centuries. It’s not necessarily arbitrary, but it can be arbitrary, and sometimes is arbitrary.
Objet trouvé or readymades like Duchamp's Fountain are the end of all art. Duchamp had a good sense of humor and some think it was all a joke to him (I share this belief) and in general jokes only work once.
It’s not the end of all art, just a new way to look at art. It only means to question things that seemed to be a truth before. It does not mean that we have necessarily to create a new idea of what art is, but we have the freedom to change our attitude.
Now we have here already in a few posts several different definitions, so it is not that easy to describe exactly what art is.
Isn’t art simply entertainment for a minority? A minority because art is mostly too complicated to be understood by everyone. I see in the word art only the attempt to distinguish some form of entertainment from another. It’s called art cause it is not that ease to make.
That’s what Robert Hughes said too, and I follow him in that aspect. It was his reason to reject most contemporary art, and I follow him in that aspect too.
It’s also the reason why readymates and those kind of nonsense has nothing to do with art.
That’s it’s not so easy to say what art is, is true, but definitions are always problematic. Don’t confuse the definition with what you try to define. I don’t need a precise definition to know that the spoon in my tea cup is not an objet d’art.
Not an expert on the matter, but always thought that the artistic “part” in Duchamps readymade was not the form or the object per si, but the concept of the thing, still in use today by other artists.
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:11223, topic:141”]That’s what Robert Hughes said too, and I follow him in that aspect. It was his reason to reject most contemporary art, and I follow him in that aspect too.
It’s also the reason why readymates and those kind of nonsense has nothing to do with art.[/quote]
It has a lot to do with art. Of course that what Duchamps made was only original as long as he was the first one.
Whatever, we have to define for ourselves what is art and what not, and also what is crap and what not.
But in the end it is not really important for me to know if a film is art or not. The only important question is if a film entertains me or bores me, or better, if it can fascinate me or if it leaves me uninterested. The things which impress me I can call art, cause a work needs to be something special to impress me. And if it is crap which impresses me (for whatever reasons) I don’t see any reason to make a difference to a similar fascinating film by calling one art and the other some kind of minor entertainment, or crap.
A simple film like Rio Bravo, for which no one (except for a few French film maniacs) cared when it was released, seems now to be a work of art, and more art than some then important films like Hiroshima mon amour. It is now art because many people see now something in it.
Right…and even a simpler film like Deep Throat with (Linda Lovelace) sucking/swallowing on a big 10 inch cock is considered a piece of art by some. I mean who the fuck knows! ???
Rio Bravo and Hiroshima Mon Amour are good examples. It happens to many artists (or works of art) that they aren’t recognized or appreciated in their own time or are considered less important than more fashionable artists (or works) from the period. Only few people were interested in Van Gogh’s works, Dostoievski was not very popular when he published his novels (Saltykov was for example more popular), even Mozart was underappreciated. Today we don’t read Saltykov anymore (well, I tried once) and Van Gogh’s and Mozart’ contemporaries are long forgotten. Hiroshima Mon Amour must have looked mighty important in those days, and it’s not difficult to imagine why.
The problem with so-called great modern artists - as French philosopher Comté-Sponville has written - is not that they weren’t popular (unless among a small group of art critics and gallery holders) in their own time, but still aren’t popular today, even though they’re already dead for a long, long time. The art world is simply fooling itself, nobody is interested in what they’re doing except for this small group of critics and gallery holders. It’s a sort of incest.
It’s of course up to anybody to define for himself what art is or what it isn’t, but I reacted to the idea that ‘anything can be art’ or that an ‘objet’ becomes an ‘objet d’art’ because it is signed by someone who’s said to be an artist.
It doesn’t become art when someone says it is art, it does when at least one views it as art. This also answers the Deep Throat thing. If someone thinks it is art, it is art at least for him. And nobody can take this away from him as long as he believes in it. So, yes everything can be art, or nothing. The audience, the viewer, the user decides.
And the changing reception of Hawks or Resnais shows that art is a fashion thing, and not a value in itself.
Then art is a completely empty concept.
So art its impossible to classify it depends on perspective culture and formation and knowledge, yes but for an insurance Company accountant like me used to classify value and put order in things, cinema is not called the seven art in vain. The French got themselves a number for each art, as far as I know the numbers were created in chronological order, as new form of artistic expression were born.
For me the second and third arts are hard to understand or judge, I really don’t know why a Miro or a Pollock is worth so much, so I really don’t pay much attention to those forms.
On the other hand from fifth to nine those are forms of art expression I can relate to and apreciate, and so criticize, because I can understand those forms of art.
For instance Andy kaufman was an artist, he wasn’t a convencional comedian but he open a lot of doors for other like Monty Phyton did.
My over simplified way of looking at it has always been… the fact that we all see something different when we watch the same film means it must be art.
Not when we fill it with meaning.
But important is not that something is art, but that it entertains us, or that it fascinates us.
[quote=“Stanton, post:11232, topic:141”]Not when we fill it with meaning.
But important is not that something is art, but that it entertains us, or that it fascinates us.[/quote]
Yes, but that’s not what I mean with an ‘empty concept’
Take your reasoning and replace ‘art’ by ‘God’
This is what you said:
“If someone thinks it is art, it is art at least for him. And nobody can take this away from him as long as he believes in it. So, yes everything can be art (…)”
Now we have someone who thinks something (the image in his head or an object) or someone (he himself or another person) is God. We can say:
“If someone thinks it (he) is God, it (he) is God at least for him. And nobody can take this away from him as long as he believes in it. So yes, everything (everybody) can be God (…)”
We cannot take this idea away from him, but we most probably will conclude there’s something wrong with the guy (or the girl).
What is wrong with this idea, is that it conflicts with our concept of ‘God’: we don’t know exactly who or what God is, our ideas have changed over the years, centuries, millenia (therefore there’s a multitude of definitions and thousands of books explaining what these definitions mean), but every even remotely sensible concept is denied by this man’s representation: his idea implies that God can be anybody or anything, no matter what. If a thing or an idea can be anything, no matter what, it’s nothing in particular, and that what’s called an ‘empty concept’. This reasoning is also used to illustrate the idea that it was Duchamp’s intention to show that the concept of art popular among his contemporaries was ‘empty’, would lead art into a dead end street.
The same things can be said about other concepts, like for instance truth: if everything, no matter what, can be truth, it does no longer make sense to talk about true or false, right or wrong.
I know, it’s tricky, but not really. (and actually we are at a point where my English is not good enough to explain properly what I mean, or it is at least very time consuming to write exactly what I mean, actually in my simple English it sounds all a bit shallow)
I have a truth, but that’s only the way I see things, and this truth must not apply to anybody else, unless he looks at the world exactly as I do. I believe in this truth, but I do not think that it anybody else must also see it hat way. And I accept any other truth, even if it is imo totally absurd.
Whatever, if everything, no matter what, can be truth, it does still make sense to talk about true or false, right or wrong. Only that I don’t defend a truth but an opinion. An opinion about truth, art, god or a brick.
But coming back to the beginning, as long as I view art as ever changing and made by men I cannot tell other people what is art and what not. And if someone believes that Twilight is art I accept it. But I can discuss it. And I can discuss my concept, as it is only an opinion which I can change, or can use to change other opinions.
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER
I didn’t get many laughs from this James Garner comedy, but I did enjoy it.
[quote=“Marvin W. Bronson, post:11235, topic:141”]SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER
I didn’t get many laughs from this James Garner comedy, but I did enjoy it.[/quote]
Haven’t seen it in a while, but as far as I recall I thought it was funnier than the first movie, Sheriff
It’s a sequel? Huh, I didn’t know that. I’ll have to check out the first movie, too.
Interesting, as I see it the other way round.
Sheriff is very funny, while there are only a few, very few laughs in Gunfighter. Best scene was when they smash the colt-hand of a killer, only to realise then that the guy is a left-hander …
Marvin, it is not a real sequel. Garner’s sly dog character is very similar, but not the same guy by name. And there are many of the same actors and generally the same kind of jokes.
Ah, okay.
I’ll check it out when it plays on Encore Westerns.
And I liked the scene where Garner broke the guy’s trigger fingers, too.
I need to rewatch them. Saw them both more than 20 years ago, Gunfighter first (on TV), then Sheriff (on VHS). Because I had liked Gunfighter a lot, I had high expectations of the other movie (which was said to be the better of the two) and hired the tape immediately afterwards, but was dissapointed. The movie was well-made, but I didn’t think it was particularly funny. Maybe it’s important which one of the two you watch first. I had the same experience with The Paleface and Son of Paleface; I found the first one hilarious and Son of … (according to some a better movie) a bit lacking in spirit.