This thread is composed of a series of off-topic posts moved from the 5 Year Anniversary thread.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: arnie,

Moved Reply:

quote:

Of course Richard is such a fine poet that other entries might be a bit redundant.

Sadly I find it hard to write poetry that doesn't rhyme, scan or make any sense (well, not all of them at once).

I have to bow to the superior poetic talents of the likes of Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) whose offerings seem to manage to do all three things with such amazing regularity that his poetry is in the Oxford Book of English Verse.

Here's an example of his work http://wwwcip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/~msfriedl/whatistheword.html

For an analysis of his and others' similar works see here http://deoxy.org/emperors.htm

Moved Reply:

I missed a few hot buttons, as you noticed. One is the definition of poetry.

Moved Reply:

quote:

One is the definition of poetry.

The definition of modern art seems to be "anything that the artist can fool the critics into thinking is art". I haven't heard of a Turner prize winner for years that is anything more than a load of old cobblers.

I could do just as well as any of those "artists" but, of course, I haven't the PR skills (or, quite frankly the brazen cheek) to submit such rubbish.

Moved Reply:

You mean poetry that doesn't rhyme, scan or make any sense. That should be easy enough

There's one other criterion you've left out. There needs to be an audience to appreciate it. And, as you post later, not all need apply at once. Many classic limericks are without sense. In fact, they belong to a category of writing known as nonsense: see the works of Edward Leary (whom some credit as inventor of the limerick form), Lewis Carroll, and Gelett Burgess (he of Purple Cow fame). As I've pointed out, on occasion, much poetry does not rhyme. In fact, rhyme is a relatively recent literary device in poetry (classical Greek, Roman, and Indian poetry does not use rhyme). Scansion is another thing entirely, though most anglophones don't seem to realize that there are two major kinds: that based on quantitiy (Greek, Latin, and Old English, for example) and that on stress (English). Meter has gone from being a defining criterion of poetry to a marginal one, starting in the 19th century with the works of some poets like Walt Whitman or Emily Dickson. In the 20th century neglect of meter became more important and favored than its use. (We're now seeing a reverse in that Modernist trend.) Poets have always worked against these devices at various times, an important motivation in most creative writing being a reaction to previous and earlier literary styles and fads. There are theorists when it comes to poetry ("If it don't rhyme, scan, or make sense to me, it ain't poetry!") and pragmatists ("I knows what I likes when I sees it!"). Count me amongst the latter camp.

The definition of modern art seems to be "anything that the artist can fool the critics into thinking is art". I haven't heard of a Turner prize winner for years that is anything more than a load of old cobblers.

Of course, the flip side is that some people, myself included, happen to genuinely like some modern poetry. You cannot deny that, and, I resent you trying to imply that I've been duped vby some vast cabal of critics. That there is plenty of bad poetry, as with art in general, nobody would deny.

Moved Reply:

I know it's my fault but let's have you in neutral corners now please gentlemen. No one on the planet will ever convince Richard that something that doesn't rhyme is a poem and no one on the planet will ever convince people in the opposite camp (zm and me included) that something HAS to rhyme to be poetry. So lets all agree to disagree.

Moved Reply:

quote:

No one on the planet will ever convince Richard that something that doesn't rhyme is a poem

Actually I am quite prepared to accept that there can be blank verse that has artistic merit. But I see no merit in, say, that Beckett work I linked to - nor of just about any single one of the Turner prize winners of recent years. Nor yet of Cage's 4'32"

My criteria for art are simple and but two.

1. Does it have to be explained? If it does, it's probably not art and

2. Is it still considered art by later generations? And I accept that the second criterion can only be applied retrospectively. Again, if future generations can't see what the earlier generation could see in it then it's probably not art.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Richard English,

Moved Reply:

Becket

Ah, yes, the man who wrote Waiting For Godot was not an artist. Ispe friggin' dixit. He was Irish, though, which probably explains some of the disdain displayed here for him and his work. And Cage was an American. That, too, is criterion enough for his exclusion. It's a small and narrow world for some us, not worth living in by any means.

folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what—

Moved Reply:

OK guys. You just go at it bare-knuckle.Me, I've heard this discussion. I'm off to read some poetry.

Moved Reply:

Lest some of our newbies doubted my above comment about spirited posts...

I believe one of our first, and perhaps our first, spirited thread was about wives.

Moved Reply:

quote:

He was Irish, though, which probably explains some of the disdain displayed here for him and his work. And Cage was an American.

Frankly I care not where these supposed artists hail from. A musical work that comprises nothing but silence is not music; a poem that comprises nothing but a random collection of meaningless words and phrases is not poetry.

I am not being xenophobic here - in the UK we have plenty of our own so-called artists who produce nothing but rubbish - Tracey Emins's dirty unmade bed being an obvious example. If her dirty unmade bed is art then so is everyone else's dirty unmade bed. Since they are not art, then her submission is not art.

And there are plenty of other examples that I could cite but I know full well that, were I to do so, then someone will claim that so and so's appalling daub is a great painting or that such and such's meaningless cacophony is great music - using in defence the almost unanswerable argument that "artistic preference is a personal thing".

In just a few minutes I could write a "poem" that has just as much poetic merit as Beckett's or compose a piece of "music" that is just as good as Cage's. But nobody would accept my efforts as art because I am not Beckett or Cage.

Moved Reply:

But nobody would accept my efforts as art because I am not Beckett or Cage.

Antony Flew's No true Scotsman fallacy. Does creating a piece of non-art, make an artist a non-artist? Both Cage and Beckett created other art pieces that were more traditional. If I paint a copy of Leonardo's La Giaconda which is indistinguishable from the original is it a piece of art? How about if I break into the Louvre one night and replace the original with the other? If I draw a mustache on the original and leave it in situ, does it cease to be art? How about Duchamp's parody piece LHOOQ? If I reproduce it by putting Dali's mustache on a postcard copy of the painting and scribbling the rude title on it? Better yet, were the Vermeer forgeries of van Meeegern art? Is this a poem?

Lean out of the window,
    Goldenhair,
I hear you singing
    A merry air.

My book was closed,
    I read no more,
Watching the fire dance
    On the floor.

I have left my book,
    I have left my room,
For I heard you singing
    Through the gloom.

Singing and singing
    A merry air,
Lean out of the window,
    Goldenhair.

If you knew that James Joyce, who penned Finnegans Wake wrote it, is it still a poem? I mean it rhymes, it scans, and it has meaning, but Joyce is no poet, he's a complete fraud. Is Syd Barrett's setting of the text to music a piece of art? (Is it worth more, now that Mr Barrett is dead?) Is my cover version of Golden Hair sung in some pub one?

I suppose Bob is right after all. Thanks for trying to warn me. Pity I didn't pay you any heed.

Moved Reply:

quote:

Both Cage and Beckett created other art pieces that were more traditional.

Quite so. I would imagine that there would be many artists of whom it could be said that some of their work is fine and some rubbish. Indeed, I would imagine that Tracey Emins, being a graduate of the Royal College of Art (where she obtained an MA) would have produced some decent work. I can't believe that her professors would have been all that impressed with her dirty unmade bed or her tent decorated with the names of her various bed partners, when she was submitting work for her degree.

But once she became Master of Art then she became a recognised artist and could produce anything she chose and will be, by some, regarded as art.

Your own examples are very thought-provoking and demonstrate how difficult it is can be to define art but I stick to my criteria. The second criterion only posterity can apply but the first - does it need explanation? - could be applied to your examples. You would probably need to explain why your production of Dali's moustache on a postcard copy of the painting, complete with a rude title, is art - and thus by my definition it's not.

As to whether or not Joyce is a complete fraud - that's your opinion and you are entitled to it; there are many who would disagree. But if he's a fraud then so are many others whom some claim are artists.

Moved Reply:

You would probably need to explain why your production of Dali's mustache on a postcard copy of the painting, complete with a rude title, is art - and thus by my definition it's not.

Not if you're familiar with the works of Duchamp. So Beowulf is not art? Chaucer? Shakespeare? All these works now need an extensive critical and hermeneutic apparatus, i.e., they need to be explained. Many today would look at an Elizabethan sonnet and say: "that's not a poem; it's just a bunch of words strung together". It's not just an artwork that needs a context. Any text does. There's more to a poem than the dictionary definitions of its vocabulary and an outline of its grammar. (Like history and culture.) For many in the modern art world, Emin's work needs no explanation. They are familiar with its context. The same for me when I read something by Shakespeare. I have studied him and his oeuvre, both at university and on my own, and while some bits and pieces of it still needs explanatory footnotes, I have a pretty good handle on what he's on about as a poet. A lot of what art is is about the artist's relationship with his milieu and to other artists who came before him. Stuckism does not make a lot of sense if you don't know a whole bunch about post-war British conceptual artists (like Emin). In fact, the movement was started by Emin's estranged boyfriend, Billy Childish, though he has since left it.

As to whether or not Joyce is a complete fraud - that's your opinion and you are entitled to it; there are many who would disagree.

I'm sorry, I was being ironic, but there is more than one critic who has opined that Finnegans Wake is at best a bad joke in poor taste which Joyce foisted upon the literate world. I believe, however, that Joyce was not only not a fraud, he is one of the 20th century's finest English writers. His Dubliners is a near-perfect masterpiece.

I will reiterate: Whether you or I like or dislike some piece of art has nothing to do with whether it's art or not. There are plenty of bad poems and such out there, but they're still true poems.

Moved Reply:

I wasn't going to get involved in the sidetracked debate but it occurs to me that by Richard's definition a poem, however much loved in its time, ceases to be a poem, if people forget it. I am perfectly sure there are many more forgotten poets than there are remembered ones. I would love to think that my own efforts might be remembered down the centuries but I am not arrogant enough to believe they will. Therefore they are not poems. Whether they rhyme or not.

Further I am currently engaged on a project writing a series of poems (most of which do rhyme) about my visit to the House on the Rock. They will be appearing here in due course. They will need explanation for anyone who hasn't been there and doesn't know what it's all about. Some of them may need accompanying photographs. Therefore they are not poems in the same way that non representational painting isn't art. C'est la vie.

Moved Reply:

And thinking about it I'd say that art that can be comprehended in its entirety without discussion or explanation is probably rather trivial art. By that definition the painting of dogs playing cards so much admired by Homer Simpson, or the most superficial of Christmas card scenes, is much better art than a whole gallery full of Pollock, Kandinsky or Mondrian, which, because of the need for explanation or thought, are, in fact, not art at all.

Moved Reply:

Hmmmm... Five years on and we STILL can't agree on much!

Asa, whose name is a palindrome pointed at both ends and hissing in the middle like a punctured inflatable kayak

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Asa Lovejoy>,

Moved Reply:

quote:

Not if you're familiar with the works of Duchamp. So Beowulf is not art? Chaucer? Shakespeare? All these works now need an extensive critical and hermeneutic apparatus, i.e., they need to be explained.

I didn't sate it but I assumed that it would be inferred - the need to explain would be to a normally educated person of the era. Obvioualy I would need Chaucer to be explained to me as I am not of his era and don't understand his English.

Mine might not be a perfect criterion but I've not seen a better one yet - not even in these recent exchanges.

And I challenge anyone to explain to any normal person's satisfaction how John Cage's 4'32" can be music or Tracey Emins's dirty bed, art. They are not art - good or bad - by any definition that a reasonable person would accept.

quote:

And thinking about it I'd say that art that can be comprehended in its entirety without discussion or explanation is probably rather trivial art.

I would agree with this - but I said "does it have to be explained" and I wasn't talking about comprehensive analysis. Most people can basically understand and appreciate, say, Shakespeare, Turner or Beethoven without anyone needing to explain the works. But obviously a proper discussion and analysis of each would lead to greater and fuller understanding.

But the Beckett poem I cited means absolutely nothing to me (and I suggest many others) without explanation. It's just a collection of meaningless words and phrases - although I am quite sure that some pundit would be able to "explain" its great subtlety and hidden depths.

Moved Reply:

Has anyone here ever actually attended a performance of 4'32"?

Moved Reply:

quote:

They are not art - good or bad - by any definition that a reasonable person would accept.

Art is any production that attempts to communicate meaning in a novel and creative manner. That seems like a perfectly reasonable definition of art to me.

Moved Reply:

Has anyone here ever actually attended a performance of 4'32"?

I've only heard it on LP.

Moved Reply:

quote:

I've only heard it on LP.

Seriously?

Moved Reply:

Seriously?

Yes. It was during the late '70s / early '80s. I was listening to a lot of avantgarde music: e.g., Ashley's She Was a Visitor, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Subotnick 's Silver Apples of the Moon, Antheil's Ballet Mécanique, etc. That sort of stuff. There are versions to be found online. Just google "John Cage" 4'33".

Moved Reply:

I've never heard it. However I have heard Mike Batt's piece, A Minute's Silence, for which he was accused of plagiarism by the John Cage Trust. They settled out of court.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/23/uk.silence/

Moved Reply:

quote:

And I challenge anyone to explain to any normal person's satisfaction how John Cage's 4'33" can be music or Tracey Emins's dirty bed, art.

I'll take a whack at it. Cage was interested in finding the beauty in ambient sounds. So, how do you express this idea musically? Some composers used the orchestra to mimic natural sounds: car horns, street noise, etc. Cage noticed something interesting: there is ambient sound everywhere, even in a concert hall when no one is performing. But this ambient sound was considered bad, something to be suppressed or eliminated. Cage noticed the irony of sitting in a concert hall that has been engineered to block out car horns and listening to Gershwin mimic car horns. 4'33" was a impish way of making people pay attention to real ambient sound, right now. And it's a long, vivid time in a concert hall when a thousand people listen to each other trying to be quiet for four and a half minutes . I challenge you to try it next time you give a talk. It really gets the audience involved. (Michael Moore wanted to include all six minutes of Bush sitting in an kindergarten class after being informed of the 9/11 attacks in Fahrenheit 9/11, but it was just too disturbing. He cut it back to 45 seconds.)

Was it good art? I don't know. Is it something people want to hear over and over? Apparently not, but the fact that we are having this conversation testifies to its continued relevance. Is it something you or I would have ever thought of? Not in a million years.

There's your explanation. It remains an explanation even if you are unconvinced, just a 4'33" remains art whether you appreciate it or not.

Moved Reply:

I can't remember neveu, were you involved in this discussion the previous half a dozen times it's done the rounds here? As sure as eggs is eggs the response will come...

Moved Reply:

quote:

I can't remember neveu, were you involved in this discussion the previous half a dozen times it's done the rounds here?

Never miss it.

Moved Reply:

quote:

There are versions to be found online. Just google "John Cage" 4'33".

I don't think it makes any sense as a recorded work.

Moved Reply:

No? How about the ambient noise in your house when you are listening to it?

Moved Reply:

I don't think it makes any sense as a recorded work.

There is always the noise inherent in the particular performance and the static, clicks, and pops on the LP itself.

ambient noise

It always reminds me of the creaking chair sounds following that infamous chord at the end of A Day in the Life on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles.

Moved Reply:

An interesting discussion on poetry, visual art, & music. 2cts:

Perhaps most could agree that Cage, Beckett, Joyce, and [names? artists who did panels of plain white, or 1 huge stripe of 1 color] are responding to a perceived cultural turning of a corner. These artists have in common a sense of listening to ambient noise, or something parallel-- throwing out as much as they possibly can of what came before, trying to see/ hear/ record without the benefit of any received notion.

I can appreciate the more extreme composers such as Cage or Glass better in performance-- as a live theatrical experience. However, I have to agree with RE that there are certain works of art/ poems which simply cannot be understood as anything at all, unless they are 'seen' in their immediate cultural context, as a rebellion against, a reaching toward, etc.

No one can disagree that there was plenty of clunky diatribe passed off as poetry in the '60's (not to mention minimalist flyspecks), and dungheaps of wispy diary entries in the '70's, and a big mishmosh of struggling to get out of that mire in the '80's, but throughout there were wonderful poets: Sylvia Plath. Robert Lowell. Maxine Kumin. Philip Levine. A R Ammons. Robert Hass. Stanley Kunitz. Seamus Heaney. etc etc

I'm pretty sure most students of contemporary poetry would agree that if you are going to forgo end rhymes and other tried & true formulae, you'd better have plenty of internal rhyme, slant rhyme, and a cogent rhythm, a great visual sense and ear for the line on the page-- otherwise there's nothing to hold it together. Many poets are turning again to the villanelle, the sestina, the sonnet; the sally into formlessness perhaps was necessary to achieve freshness & perspective.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bethree5,

Moved Reply:

Hmmmm.... Do you write literary reviews for a living? Well done.

Moved Reply:

I am beginning to agree with Bob's definition of art; from my understanding, it's anything is art if the artist says so, is that correct, Bob? I mean, isn't it arrogant to begin to judge what is art and what isn't? Bethree, some (and I know quite a few) do like the extreme composers. To those people, they are understood as something.

In another thread, Richard wondered why those who like classical music or own Rolls Royces or drink good beer are considered "snobs." I'd say it is because often it is the classical music lovers who say that rap or hip hop music is "crap." Similarly, the owner of a great car (Rolls, Mercedes, BMW) will sneer at a Honda Accord. The same with good beer drinkers when they see Budweiser drinkers. I guess it's that judging of others that irritates me. We might not like a certain type of poetry, art, or music, but we have no right to say it's awful or not art. Surely we can criticize it and have sophisticated discussions about it (as above); but I get uncomfortable when people say it doesn't exist or it's just plain rubbish.

Having said that, Arnie, can you split this thread? Perhaps we could call it What is art - Part 100 . I had hoped this would be a positive review of our 5 years here. I don't know how to split threads, or I'd do it. Thanks a lot!

Moved Reply:

Yes. My position is that Richard, as always, is conflating two separate questions. "What is art?" and "What is good art?". Richard, perhaps sincerely, perhaps disingenuously, likes to muddle these questions together.

While it is a perfectly permissible position for someone to suggest that in his or her opinion Tracy Emin's "My Bed" is poor, bad or rubbish (or good, great or brilliant, for that matter) art it shouldn't be said that it isn't art. Tracy Emin made it it - she says it's art; QED it's art.

I'm not defending it as a piece of art because in this case I personally think it's rubbish. Others disagree.

My view is that if the person who wrote/composed/painted/sculpted/built it says it's art then it's art. No ifs, no buts. The definition of art is anything the artist says is art.

On the subject of good and bad art there as many opinions as there are critics. Just because some people like to treat the two questions as one doesn't mean they are one.

Moved Reply:

quote:

Yes. My position is that Richard, as always, is conflating two separate questions. "What is art?" and "What is good art?". Richard, perhaps sincerely, perhaps disingenuously, likes to muddle these questions together.

Possibly. But the questions are inextricably connected.

To take your definition of art to start with: "...It's art it the artist says it's art" - that means that anything, no matter how eccentric, banal or offensive is art. There's a bird-dropping on my window right now. If I say it's art, does that make it art? And how about the other millions of similar droppings? Are they now art simply because I claim my particular dropping to be art? I suggest not. But how about if Tracey Emins calls her bird dropping art? Does that make a difference? Possibly. Because she's considered by the avant-garde art establishment to be an artist. But to me such a thing will never be art, no matter how often someone claims it is.

Coming now to good and bad art. That's actually easier. Any piece of art can be good, less good or terrible. Take paintings. Few would disagree that Constable or Turner painted great pictures and there are other artists who tried to paint similar styles of pictures with more or less success. Good, bad or indifferent. But there comes a time when a picture is no longer art, no matter what the artist calls it. If you take away too many of the recognised components of a painting it is no longer a painting. Most people (although I am sure that there will be some Turner Prize entrant who will try it on) would agree that a picture that has no paint, no frame and no canvass, no matter how fine its easel, is not a picture and thus not art. And how about if it's just a frame? Or just a frame and canvass? Or just a frame and canvass and a single blob of paint? Or a frame, canvass and a complete coating of one colour of paint? Well, that last example has been submitted and hailed as art by some - and its creator claimed it as art. But I suggest that it is not art, not even bad art - unless, of course, my painted kitchen wall is art.

I suggest that there comes a time when, if sufficient components are removed, then the item is not longer what it originally claimed to be.

The topic of beer, especially Budweiser, was cited and and it's a good example. Budweiser is beer - but not good beer. It has all the components of beer and more besides. Just as in a poor painting or a poor poem, the components are there but not well put together. Indeed, as Eric Morecambe famously said to Andre Previn, who claimed the Eric "was playing all the wrong notes" when he was attempting to play the Grieg Piano Concerto, "...Listen sunshine, I'm playing all the right notes - but not necessarily in the right order...". In other words, Eric's attempt was not good art, although it was still art - or artistic interpretation.

Beer can be good, bad or indifferent and still be beer. But if you take away the hops, would it be beer? It could be (Froach Heather Ale has no hops). How about if you take away the malt? It still could be beer - there are some worthy beers brewed other than from malted barley. But take away the yeast or the water and it can't be beer. No matter that the manufacturers call it beer, it's not beer.

And I suggest it is the same with art. There comes a time when it isn't just bad art; it's not art at all - and the examples I have given do not, to my mind, qualify for the description "art" no matter what their creators choose to call them.

Moved Reply:

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
To take your definition of art to start with: "...It's art it the artist says it's art" - that means that anything, no matter how eccentric, banal or offensive is art.

Yes. If the artist says its art. Questions of eccentricity, banality and especially offensiveness do not enter into whether something is art or not. There are many who believe that art has a duty to shock.

quote:

There's a bird-dropping on my window right now. If I say it's art, does that make it art?

Yes if you are the bird who dropped it.

quote:

And how about the other millions of similar droppings?

You would need to ask the pigeons in question what their intentions were.

quote:

But how about if Tracey Emins calls her bird dropping art? Does that make a difference?

No. But if she gathers them up into a pile and callls it "The Unbearable Pomposity of Criticism" then yes. Bad art maybe but art nevertheless.

quote:

Coming now to good and bad art. That's actually easier.

I beg to differ. Your idea and my idea of good poetry (for example) are irreconcilably different.

quote:

But there comes a time when a picture is no longer art, no matter what the artist calls it. If you take away too many of the recognised components of a painting it is no longer a painting.

Bye Bye Pollck, Bye Bye Mondrian, Bye Bye Kandinsky, throw out most of the Picassos.

quote:

Most people (although I am sure that there will be some Turner Prize entrant who will try it on) would agree that a picture that has no paint, no frame and no canvass, no matter how fine its easel, is not a picture and thus not art.

Two classic logical falacies for the price of one, a straw man argument - nobody has made this claim that you are refuting, and a non sequitur - because it isn't a painting doesn't mean it isn't art; Beethoven's 9th isn't a painting but it is art.

quote:

But I suggest that it is not art, not even bad art - unless, of course, my painted kitchen wall is art.

You know Richard sometimes it seems that you are being deliberately obtuse. Did you intend your kitchen wall to be a piece of art when you painted it? If you did then it is. If you didn't then it isn't.

quote:

I suggest that there comes a time when, if sufficient components are removed, then the item is not longer what it originally claimed to be.

You really DON'T want to know what I suggest.

quote:

The topic of beer, especially Budweiser, was cited and and it's a good example. Budweiser is beer - but not good beer. It has all the components of beer and more besides. Just as in a poor painting or a poor poem, the components are there but not well put together. Indeed, as Eric Morecambe famously said to Andre Previn, who claimed the Eric "was playing all the wrong notes" when he was attempting to play the Grieg Piano Concerto, "...Listen sunshine, I'm playing all the right notes - but not necessarily in the right order...". In other words, Eric's attempt was not good art, although it was still art - or artistic interpretation.

Beer can be good, bad or indifferent and still be beer. But if you take away the hops, would it be beer? It could be (Froach Heather Ale has no hops). How about if you take away the malt? It still could be beer - there are some worthy beers brewed other than from malted barley. But take away the yeast or the water and it can't be beer. No matter that the manufacturers call it beer, it's not beer.

And we'll top off the catalogue of logical fallacies by inappropriate analogy.
Well done that man.

PS Her name is Tracy Emin, not Emins

PPS But just to make you happy...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Moved Reply:

OK. Let's try another approach.

Here's an old poem of mine, not, I freely admit a particularly good one.

quote:

Cellophane butterflies above the stone fountain;
Dismembered dolls fill the cabinet.
Reaching for sanity's climbing a mountain,
But we can't leave the valley quite yet.

Arms, legs and heads on a separate shelf -
Where did the torsos all go ?
Charlie Chaplin in cardboard admiring himself
It's clear there's something we don't know.

The inflatable Batman who stands on the stairs,
Wobbling with each passing breeze,
Is surrounded by cupboards that might just be coffins.
This psychotic place is diseased.

Torsos and fish net painted red white and blue;
A bowling ball stands on a plate;
A wraught iron pedastal supports one pink shoe;
Under the water a smiling cold face.

Rows of tights filled with sand have been nailed to a board
Above glass jars full of debris and dust.
A rocking horse body is missing its head
It seems a betrayal of trust.

How did we get here ? I can't be quite sure.
When will we leave ? I don't know.
Through the cracks in the mirror I watch my reflection
And realise there's no hurry to go.

Now, the thing is that this looks for all the world like a collection of random gibberish, the literary equivalent of a collage made from randomly selected bits of cut up newspaper and magazine. Without some further input from me it's monumentally unlikely that you can possibly know what it's about.

It rhymes and for the most part it scans (though that could use a little work) but it isn't about anything, is it?

Well yes it is. It is, in fact, a purely descriptive piece about a hotel (Hotel Trinidad, Merida, Mexico). Bizarre though it sounds all those things are in that hotel. Has my random gibberish suddenly become a poem because it turns out that, against all probability, it is descriptive?

If it has, then why has it? It's the same poem that it was before, not a word, a full stop or a comma has changed.

And what of the hotel, itself? I once described it as looking like the inside of a psychotics head. To me it's a giant piece of indescribably weird conceptual art. I thought its random weirdness was magnificent. Others disagreed. But is it art? Or is it, like Richard's kitchen, not art because it's just how the owner chose to decorate? I didn't speak to the owner. I don't know if he claims it's art or not, but I'll bet that he does. And if he does it is.

Now I think I'll go and tidy up the metre in that poem.

PS I've checked the internet. They hotel owners say it's art so it's art. See I was right.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Moved Reply:

quote:

And we'll top off the catalogue of logical fallacies by inappropriate analogy.

I reckon it's perfectly appropriate. And if I believe it is, then it is. (Or is it only art about which one can say, "I believe it therefore it is").

Moved Reply:

The artist's intention is important, but, to me, it's not the only criterion for whether something is art, but, you know, it is complicated.

There are some problematic cases. (1) What of the oeuvre of Ern Malley? He is a fictional Australian poet whose biography and works were created by two other poets, James McAuley and Harold Stewart. Poems attributed to him were subsequently printed in the literary journal, Angry Penguins. Were the Malley texts, written by McAuley and Stewart, poetry or not? Good or bad? (2) Another "literary" hoax is the notorious anti-Semitic tract, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Supposedly a non-fiction work that describes a Jewish plot to control the world, bits of it were plagiarized from two earlier works by Maurice Joly (a satirical monograph) and Hermann Goedsche (a novel). It was disseminated by the Okhrana, the Russian Tsarist secret police, by Sergei Nilus, a Russian priest, and most notoriously by Henry (history is bunk) Ford.

What of the audience? The consumer of the work of art? Do they have some input into what is or is not art? And what of the critics? What of the businessmen, in earlier times, patrons, who insert themselves between the artist and the audience?

History also comes into play. Different times have had different criteria for what is or isn't art. (1) For example, for the Ancient Greeks, a play wasn't a play if it wasn't composed in lyric verse, which scanned, but did not rhyme. Just as important was originally there were only two characters in the plays. There needed to be a unity of time and place. Later playwrights added extra characters and allowed changes in place and time to be made. After all, Homer's Odyssey consisted largely of flashbacks, some of the content of which is told by an unreliable narrator (e.g., Odysseus lying to protect himself). (2) Notoriously, the French Impressionists' works were seen as bad art or non-art by contemporary critics. Today, few would exclude them from the canon. (3) Were the cave paintings in places like Lascaux art? Religious symbols? Simple records of past hunts? Many see them as pre-historic art. The intentions of the "artists" are probably not even recoverable or important. (4) A lot of art in the past couple of centuries has been a conscious reaction to and commentary on previous artworks.

Are flowers or fractals art? Many find them beautiful. But there's no artist (maybe a discoverer), unless nature or mathematics can be an artist. An artist and critic once decried that fractal images should even be displayed as art, rather the formulas for generating them should. Much of the art in the UK which has generated a lot of heated criticism is conceptual art "in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns". Conceptual art is mainly a post-WW2 phenomenon, but it can be traced back to the early 20th century and Marcel Duchamp.

Finally, according to some criteria (e.g., the famous German Reinheitsgebot), many British and Belgian beers, let alone American rice-based Budweiser, don't qualify as beer.

Moved Reply:

quote:

Finally, according to some criteria (e.g., the famous German Reinheitsgebot), many British and Belgian beers, let alone American rice-based Budweiser, don't qualify as beer.

In fact the Reinheitsgebot and the later Manx purity laws merely stated the permitted ingredients for beer in Bavaria and the Isle of Man. Both laws were enacted to avoid adulteration, not to define beer. Beer, quite recognisable as such, was being brewed long before even the Reinheitsgebot and hops, one of the stipulated ingredients, are relatively new. As I said, Froach heather ale, a perfectly good beer, contains no hops. Its brewers claim that its history goes back around 4000 years. I have drunk it and I recommend you try some.

So far as the beer purity laws are concerned, under EC legislation, which overrules national legislation, neither Bavaria nor the Isle of Man can now prevent beers brewed with other ingredients being sold in their legislatures.

What this exchange does seem to prove is that it is very difficult to define anything both simply and precisely. If even a relatively straightforward thing like beer is difficult to define, then how much more difficult is it to define art? My suggestion - the ability of the artistic work to be apparent on its own without explanation - is, I believe, quite a good criterion; I accept it is imperfect but will use it until I learn of a better one.

And I fear that Bob's suggestion - the belief of the artist - does not satisfy me. If we apply that criterion to everything (as we logically could if we apply it to art) then we immediately agree, say, that all religions must be genuine since their creators believed in them. I consider that a belief is no more than an indication of the believer's mental situation; it proves or disproves nothing about the subject which is believed in.

Moved Reply:

And I fear that Bob's suggestion - the belief of the artist - does not satisfy me. If we apply that criterion to everything (as we logically could if we apply it to art) then we immediately agree, say, that all religions must be genuine since their creators believed in them. I consider that a belief is no more than an indication of the believer's mental situation; it proves or disproves nothing about the subject which is believed in.

Not necessarily. We could say that something is a religion if its practitioners say it is.

Moved Reply:

quote:

Not necessarily. We could say that something is a religion if its practitioners say it is.

But if you consider that all religions are no more than beliefs (as I do) then their supporters' beliefs don't make them true; they only make them their beliefs.

One of the difficulties with things like art is that there is no agreement as to what constitutes art and therefore what constitutes evidence of art. But if you want to believe in the Flat Earth theory, your belief doesn't make the existence of a flat Earth a fact any more than does an artist's belief in his or her creation. |But there is plenty of convincing evidence that it is not true that the Earth is flat and the point can be debated using that evidence.

I think that what I am saying is that if a thing is no more than belief, then anyone's belief is proof of what it is. In the absence of agreed criteria then probably the only determinant is how many people believe. If the artist thinks it's great art but nobody else does (cf Caucophonix) then I suggest it's a fair bet that it's not great art.

Moved Reply:

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:

quote:

Not necessarily. We could say that something is a religion if its practitioners say it is.

But if you consider that all religions are no more than beliefs (as I do) then their supporters' beliefs don't make them true; they only make them their beliefs.

I'll open another can or vermicelli: How about religious art? Many of the Old Masters painted/sculpted/wrote on religious themes. If we take something like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel out of its religious context, most people, I think, would still define it as art, but then I'm a member of the "art as emotive" school. If more than a person's intellect is engaged, or if intellect is engaged in non-linear ways, it's probably art.

Moved Reply:

quote:

I'll open another can or vermicelli: How about religious art? Many of the Old Masters painted/sculpted/wrote on religious themes.

I think there's little doubt that many of the finest works of art (of all kinds) have been created in response to some form of religious stimulus.

Religion has been that cause of much that is wonderful and much that is terrible. It doesn't make religions any more than beliefs, though.

Moved Reply:

If you are unable to see The Emperor's New Clothes," and appreciate their beauty, then there must be a serious lack in your intellect, a major flaw in your cultural education. Pity.

Moved Reply:

How about religious art? Many of the Old Masters painted/sculpted/wrote on religious themes.

In dact, for many, if the work did not serve a religious function or have a religious theme, it wasn't art. I remember having an argument with a born-again Christian a long time ago whether some of the Old Testament was poetry. For him, poetry equalled fiction, and he was probably also disturbed by the lack of rhyme and meter. I pointed out that the Psalms most definitely were verse. His pastor agreed. He was shaken but not stirred.

If you are unable to see The Emperor's New Clothes," and appreciate their beauty, then there must be a serious lack in your intellect, a major flaw in your cultural education. Pity.

I've been able to see the story since I was a teen. But, were the emperor's new clothes clothes or not? The story is art.

Moved Reply:

Now for my 2 cents about the art discussion.

quote:

Few would disagree that Constable or Turner painted great pictures

Richard, as with all art, people are very opinionated. Even though I like Constable a lot, I have seen people who haven't liked Constable's work at all. And even I prefer Monet or Renoir to Constable. You see, that's my point, and I've shared this with you privately: People are different. They like different things. We all don't like Constable or Beethoven or Fuller's. Some may prefer some of Piccaso's very abstract art, rap music, and Old Style. What dusts my doilies is when people are judged because others don't think their art preferences are up to snuff; that to me is pure arrogance.

I realize, Bethree and a zmj, that there are problems with Bob's definition of art. Yet, I haven't really heard anything that's much better. I absolutely agree with Bob that there is a distinction between "good art" and "bad art," which is a totally different question from defining what is art. For the latter, I suppose you could look at the size of the audience, but zmj is right about the French impressionists; they weren't popular at first at all. The appreciation of their art evolved with time. So, while I think that should be considered, I don't think it's the entire consideration.

Moved Reply:

I realize, Bethree and a zmj, that there are problems with Bob's definition of art.

I think there are problems with all definitions of all words. It makes sense to me that something as important and complex as art would have problematic and widely differing definitions. I don't really have a problem with somebody telling me that he has a different definition of what is art. I just have a problem with that person telling me that his definition is correct and mine is rubbish. The words good and bad are greatly overloaded meaningwise, because they are terms of both aesthetic and ethical judgment.

Moved Reply:

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
The words good and bad are greatly overloaded meaningwise, because they are terms of both aesthetic and ethical judgment.

Or, put another way, they are relative terms to which some would affix absolutes. It is the assigning of absolutes to any judgment that seems to be where we get into trouble, whether in art, or law, or dogma of any kind.

Moved Reply:

quote:

Richard, as with all art, people are very opinionated. Even though I like Constable a lot, I have seen people who haven't liked Constable's work at all.

Of course. People will have their own preferences. But even those who don't like Constable would agree that his paintings are good - and that they are art.

Bob's definition, as I said, doesn't work for me and, having slept on it, I have realised that I have another problem with it.

Few people would disagree that Shakespeare's, Beethoven's and Constable's creations are all art. But when they were creating their works, did the artists believe they were creating art? Did Shakespeare believe that his 'Hamlet' was going to be revered as amongst the world's best English writing in half a millennium? Or was he more concerned with getting enough cash to have a pint at the George before they closed? How about Burns? When he saw the louse on that woman's hair, was he thinking, "Hey, in a couple of hundred years people will be quoting 'O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us It wad frae monie a blunder free us An' foolish notion' - I reckon that's great art!" Or was he thinking, "I reckon, if I play my cards right, I'll be alright with that one". Artists being human, I reckon the latter would the more likely in both cases.

And I still believe that the judgement of posterity it a better determinant than most.