Dear Art,
Thank you for your fast and heartfelt response. I agree that there are many things that make something “art.” All the same saying that it is something that moves you is not enough! A parent is moved by a child drawing as a memoir of the child’s achievement, but that is not art. Although it must be said that there are those who would view an object that is similar in physical prowess to that of a grade school child as art. And the curse is that there are cases where this is even true. But a digress.
The point I am making is that that definition would make art only defined by the viewer in which case all the work made that is unseen would not be validated until seen. In my eyes that puts far too much power and influence in the hands of the viewer, or even more sinister in the hands of the collectors.
A further issue I have with that positioning is that it predicates mass acceptance for art to be art. That does not fit into history. Do we not look back through history to see art that reminds us or our past? This also touches on the idea that art is primarily defined by the viewer, which I have already questioned.
I think we can agree that intent plays a role in the arts. I also think that physicality plays a major role. Artists make things to communicate ideas to people. Maybe that could be a way to loosely define it? That would put art in the arena of communication. That is a theory I can agree with. What do you think?
Of course this opens the topic of craft and skill up. As engaging as the process of abstraction is I sometimes wonder how it is that we, as the general audience of the arts, have come to see such brilliance in the result of what can clearly be seen as an intellectual exercise? Abstraction feels at times the the reduction of all complex truths into single punchlines.
That is most clear in the work of some of the conceptualists. Like being the person who wrote the punchline on a canvas makes you the owner of that punchline, no matter how obvious it is. It really pusses me off at times. Although, the anger is more focused on the presentation and the allure that then surround these objects. Hang them in a college bar and they would earn a laugh and take their place in the memory of the students who away their underagedness beneath them. In the art world the same works are guilted with awe and are passed around while ratcheting up the price until they become useful as a tax write off for one of the aforementioned collectors. And this is not just true of the conceptualists. In fact, I think this is true of much of the big money are works. What’s the old saying?
“If it’s nit good make it big. If it’s still bit good make is colorful. If it’s still not good make it expensive. Then it’s good.”
Which brings us right back to the “importance” of the collectors as validates of what art is, or is not… urg.
Maybe you can shed some light on this? Until then, be well.
Best, Julian
