Help with a dissertation! What is art?

[littlebabyjesus]

That's a very eloquent response, Cid. I enjoyed reading it.

I was being a bit provocative questioning whether or not architecture is art. But in the end this discussion 'what is art' always boils down to an argument about semantics. Anything that inspires you to see the world in a new way, or enables you to experience existence in a new way, can be a work of art.

I see no need to examine the question further. Mind you, I think that about quite a lot of what is discussed in this forum. Doesn't stop me doing it.

 

[camouflage]

What do you think about art?


What is an exhibition space?


What makes something art?


Is everything in art galeries art?


Can anyone make art?


Can anything become art?


What is the most intrestering/innovate object/sound/thing/experience yoyu have occoured recently?

Art is creative expression for the sake of.

 

[fractionMan]

Art is creative expression for the sake of.

what about art that is done to make money?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How about some feedback from the OP? Very lazy and poor form not to engage in your own thread.

 

[fractionMan]

How about some feedback from the OP? Very lazy and poor form not to engage in your own thread.

It would be nice if OP bothered to address some of the questions she posed.

 

[Cid]

Try adding 'everything is nothing' to the end of your posts; that usually gets her engaged.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I suppose we should be careful what we wish for.

 

[fractionMan]

art is everything but nothing is art

Will that do?

 

[Dillinger4]

.

 

[fractionMan]

.

this is art

 

[Dillinger4]

I am making a statement about the futility of the human condition.

 

[fractionMan]

*strokes beard*

 

[camouflage]

what about art that is done to make money?

It makes money because people buy it for the sake of owning and perhaps displaying items of creative expression.

 

[camouflage]

How about some feedback from the OP? Very lazy and poor form not to engage in your own thread.

I start threads and then wander off and ignore them all the time.

 

[fractionMan]

It makes money because people buy it for the sake of owning and perhaps displaying items of creative expression.

I was refering to the people who make art purely for money and wouldn't bother if they didn't have to earn a living, which makes it 'not art' by your definition.

 

[smmudge]

I was refering to the people who make art purely for money and wouldn't bother if they didn't have to earn a living, which makes it 'not art' by your definition.

I don't think that's art, I think that's kitsch. Same as for those who do it but for political purposes.

 

[butchersapron]

It makes money because people buy it for the sake of owning and perhaps displaying items of creative expression.

Or as an investment.

 

[Cid]

I don't think that's art, I think that's kitsch. Same as for those who do it but for political purposes.

A lot of renaissance painters did it for cash and, as I mentioned, a lot of the work of painters like Holbein was to get pictures of nobles/princesses to their prospective brides/grooms... As for political purposes, does that make Guernica not art?

 

[smmudge]

Sure, just like Mozart wrote for commission. But what makes these things art don't have as much to do with what they were created for at the time, but more how they now offer us insight into cultures and realities that we can't experience. For the same reason I might even entertain the idea that an everyday artifact of another society long ago and far away is 'art' now even though, at the time it was made, it might have been considered banal.

And I was thinking more like people who created 'art' according to guidelines of a state or ruling party, or solely in the interest of a political party gaining power, like 'art' of the Russian Revolution.

 

[butchersapron]

So what about 'art' that offers insight into our own 'cultures and realities'? For money.

 

[smmudge]

If it's 'purely for money' I doubt the creator is that worried about exploring idea and meaning through abstraction and metaphor...it doesn't really sell so good these days.

 

[butchersapron]

What if it's not? Does it matter what the creator intends to investiagte? There's limits being placed here -can you be explicit about what they are?

The key bit was about insight into our own 'cultures and realities' anyway, not money.

 

[Santino]

I think it's interesting* that the two most popular ideas of what art is are mutually inconsistent. It is either (a) literally anything you want it to be, or (b) not something that is done for money or propaganda or to be useful.



*In a pretty loose meaning of the word.

 

[danny la rouge]

Without reading all the thread, I assume the OP has read books? Primarily Ways of Seeing, by John Berger?

Or is that...presumptuous?

 

[Cid]

Sure, just like Mozart wrote for commission. But what makes these things art don't have as much to do with what they were created for at the time, but more how they now offer us insight into cultures and realities that we can't experience. For the same reason I might even entertain the idea that an everyday artifact of another society long ago and far away is 'art' now even though, at the time it was made, it might have been considered banal.

And I was thinking more like people who created 'art' according to guidelines of a state or ruling party, or solely in the interest of a political party gaining power, like 'art' of the Russian Revolution.

Like the Catholic church for instance?

 

[smmudge]

The key bit was about insight into our own 'cultures and realities' anyway, not money.

Well, really it was just a reiteration of this:

Anything that inspires you to see the world in a new way, or enables you to experience existence in a new way, can be a work of art.

 

[i-am-your-idea]

art is everything but nothing is art

Will that do?

What do you think about art?

I tend not to think about art. It feels like its something that happens of its own accord. Sometimes the best way to 'co-operate' with art is to not think conciously about it. An understanding of art can be wordless- we have understandings, and reactions to things, before we develop language.

I don't have any lofty expectations of art. Art can be glorified in the mind, though various means- but this neither makes it higher or lower, because theres always an equally valid opposing opinion.

Its easy for a scientist to say science is the only thing- and its equally fashionable for the artist to say art is the only thing. Maybe it is only the only thing, when art is all things. It may feel like a Nothing word in when we see how far it can reach- but thats an more of a verbal illusion. Art, like most things still means something, as well as nothing.

 

[fractionMan]

I hope your not taking my facile response out of context and thinking I was serious. I was replying to this:

Try adding 'everything is nothing' to the end of your posts; that usually gets her engaged.

 

[i-am-your-idea]

i like taking things out of context.

 

[fractionMan]

that's because it means you don't have to address the actual point