Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[chilloutdancer]

The more I think about/talk to people who are "doing art", the more I realize that for most of such people it's just an easy way to discriminate people with no reason.
Let's say there's a guy who let's say draws. He does it for some time and consider himself to be doing "art".
But why? Isn't that person just do what other people do? Every person has been drawing something at some point, some more, some less, but everybody can draw something, just like every person breathes air. There's no criteria to identify if someone "can draw" and someone "can't".
So the person who claims to be "an artist" is different from other people just by his decision to put himself above other people, and find people who would buy into it.

Or here's another more relevant example.
There's a guy named Don Buchla who kinda invented modular synthesizers back in the 60s and was going around playing it on festivals and such.
Nowadays people BUY synthesizers from the company Don Buchla left, turns knobs, push buttons on them and consider it "modern experimental art" or even compare themselves to Don Buchla.
But there's nothing new in it. Like, why would you call it "doing art" if you just copy what other people do and have been doing for 50+ years? After all, to do what Don Buchla did is not to grab a newest instrument from the shop(which was an electroguitar in the 60s I guess) and play with it. It's to make something new.

And the ambiguity of "art" basically allows people to do nothing and claim you do something, even we ignore what exactly that is.

[Sy Borg]

I don't see it the same way. Being an artist is not just a matter of knocking off a few rough pieces; it's a long term commitment to the form, and the artist will be relied upon to produce when required. Really, putting together an exhibition, with everything framed and positioned would be hard enough even if every canvas was left blank, let alone providing the content. Behind almost every piece is a ton of unseen preparatory work.

If your point is ultimately that the cream does not always rise to the top, I fully agree. Often, it's the best networkers who rise to the top in the arts. Remember, artists have to be able to talk turkey with peers and art lovers. Introverts need to be super-talented to cut through, though sometimes novelty value wins out.

Remember when John Cage was using those radio boxes to get feedback whistles? I saw an experimental art gig, where a performer sat on the floor with a box that produced similar feedback whistles while simultaneously playing an alto sax filled with water. It wasn't really experimental, since JC did it decades before. I wanted to laugh at the time, but the audiences were taking it all so dead seriously that I would have been in bother - reviled as a Philistine!

Anyone can be an artist, but not anyone can be a good artist. While taste is subjective, skill, creativity, tone, taste, timing, versatility, energy and sincerity are not. In any area that is not strictly tied down by logic, eg. engineering, data analysis, etc one will find a measure of wankery in the field. From sociology to the arts to religion you will find jokers exploiting postmodern values that don't require practical knowledge or skill.

[Stoppelmann]

The more I think about/talk to people who are "doing art", the more I realize that for most of such people it's just an easy way to discriminate people with no reason.
Let's say there's a guy who let's say draws. He does it for some time and consider himself to be doing "art".
But why? Isn't that person just do what other people do? Every person has been drawing something at some point, some more, some less, but everybody can draw something, just like every person breathes air. There's no criteria to identify if someone "can draw" and someone "can't".
So the person who claims to be "an artist" is different from other people just by his decision to put himself above other people, and find people who would buy into it.

I fail to see how a negative discrimination (prejudice, bias) comes into this, because if someone is expressing themselves through drawing, painting, photography, music, sculpture, or whatever, it is another’s prerogative to say that they see it as art and provide means for the person to continue. I used to draw and paint, but to me it was all experimentation. I was surprised when someone actually wanted to put one of my pictures on the wall, and another one even volunteered to buy a picture (for a low price), which completely surprised me. As I said, they said it was art, for me it was experimenting with a medium.

If anyone was discriminating, it was those who called my work art and disregarded others, even if they had no real knowledge about real art. I had other ways to express myself and so I didn’t continue down that path but found that one of my pictures was still being used by a group on their monthly magazine several years ago. There is no discrimination in a negative way, only a differentiation between what the person found good and what was not so good in their view.

Or here's another more relevant example.
There's a guy named Don Buchla who kinda invented modular synthesizers back in the 60s and was going around playing it on festivals and such.
Nowadays people BUY synthesizers from the company Don Buchla left, turns knobs, push buttons on them and consider it "modern experimental art" or even compare themselves to Don Buchla.
But there's nothing new in it. Like, why would you call it "doing art" if you just copy what other people do and have been doing for 50+ years? After all, to do what Don Buchla did is not to grab a newest instrument from the shop(which was an electroguitar in the 60s I guess) and play with it. It's to make something new.

And the ambiguity of "art" basically allows people to do nothing and claim you do something, even we ignore what exactly that is.

Why is art something new? And why can people not consider what someone does as art? I recently saw a “revival band” who sang Simon and Garfunkel songs (really Paul Simon songs), and I found them brilliant. They weren’t original, obviously, but their art was to reproduce a sound that people like me appreciate, and it was quite different to listening to the old recordings because it was live. Perhaps art is completely subjective, I would suggest it is, even if we may agree on one piece of art, there may be others where we disagree.

[LuckyR]

The artist, like their art, is in the eye of the audience. It's not dissimilar to a "hiker" in a world where essentially everyone can walk.

You should watch the Incredibles. When everyone is super, no one will be.

[Pattern-chaser]

Anyone can be an artist, but not anyone can be a good artist. While taste is subjective, skill, creativity, tone, taste, timing, versatility, energy and sincerity are not. In any area that is not strictly tied down by logic, eg. engineering, data analysis, etc one will find a measure of wankery in the field. From sociology to the arts to religion you will find jokers exploiting postmodern values that don't require practical knowledge or skill.

Yes. Art is art because the artist says it is. There is no such thing as 'good' or 'bad' art, but only art that *you* like, or don't like. If you don't like it, you don't patronise it, and (if others agree with you) the artist will not succeed in their career. Art is a risky field to enter, as an 'employment'. Happily, for art, art is a vocation, from the artist's point of view.

Art is wholly 'in the eye of the beholder'. ... Which does mean that "wankery", if it is appreciated by its audience, is successful art.

[Sy Borg]

Anyone can be an artist, but not anyone can be a good artist. While taste is subjective, skill, creativity, tone, taste, timing, versatility, energy and sincerity are not. In any area that is not strictly tied down by logic, eg. engineering, data analysis, etc one will find a measure of wankery in the field. From sociology to the arts to religion you will find jokers exploiting postmodern values that don't require practical knowledge or skill.

Yes. Art is art because the artist says it is. There is no such thing as 'good' or 'bad' art, but only art that *you* like, or don't like. If you don't like it, you don't patronise it, and (if others agree with you) the artist will not succeed in their career. Art is a risky field to enter, as an 'employment'. Happily, for art, art is a vocation, from the artist's point of view.

Art is wholly 'in the eye of the beholder'. ... Which does mean that "wankery", if it is appreciated by its audience, is successful art. 😉

Consider the stringency and discipline required to be a civil engineer with the "talents" of Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who found success as a conspiracy theorist because she sucked up to Trump.

[psycho]

The more I think about/talk to people who are "doing art", the more I realize that for most of such people it's just an easy way to discriminate people with no reason.
Let's say there's a guy who let's say draws. He does it for some time and consider himself to be doing "art".
But why? Isn't that person just do what other people do? Every person has been drawing something at some point, some more, some less, but everybody can draw something, just like every person breathes air. There's no criteria to identify if someone "can draw" and someone "can't".
So the person who claims to be "an artist" is different from other people just by his decision to put himself above other people, and find people who would buy into it.

Or here's another more relevant example.
There's a guy named Don Buchla who kinda invented modular synthesizers back in the 60s and was going around playing it on festivals and such.
Nowadays people BUY synthesizers from the company Don Buchla left, turns knobs, push buttons on them and consider it "modern experimental art" or even compare themselves to Don Buchla.
But there's nothing new in it. Like, why would you call it "doing art" if you just copy what other people do and have been doing for 50+ years? After all, to do what Don Buchla did is not to grab a newest instrument from the shop(which was an electroguitar in the 60s I guess) and play with it. It's to make something new.

And the ambiguity of "art" basically allows people to do nothing and claim you do something, even we ignore what exactly that is.

Even in the case of a person who draws wonderfully well (whatever the criteria used) their work would not necessarily be "art".

I suppose that an artist is someone who dedicates himself to certain activities with a high aesthetic component.

But engaging in something artistic does not make that individual's output result in "art."

I do not think that "art" can be considered as that creation that does not copy anything or anyone.

In my opinion, art is the result of a certain state of society and culture that surrounds the artist, in which certain ideas are diluted, almost indistinguishable, and the artist tuned to that state produces aesthetic works that highlight the idea and he makes it publicly noticeable.

He created the novelty that everyone expected, without knowing it.

[Sculptor1]

The primary aim of modern art is the collection of money.
People with power decide who are the best candidates to recive their positive critique, are elevated by them.
What follows is a media exercise involving collection of favours and the promotion of garbage portrayed as vital, novel, forward looking, worthy and a whole list of other validations in which the rich "collectors" are convinced about the value and future proof investibiity of "art".

[Pattern-chaser]

Consider the stringency and discipline required to be a civil engineer with the "talents" of Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who found success as a conspiracy theorist because she sucked up to Trump.

OK, but is this lady an artist, in your opinion? I assume not.

[Sy Borg]

Consider the stringency and discipline required to be a civil engineer with the "talents" of Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who found success as a conspiracy theorist because she sucked up to Trump.

OK, but is this lady an artist, in your opinion? I assume not.

She is at least an inspired BS artist. No idea what she does in her spare time, aside from shooting things.

[Consul]

Remember when John Cage was using those radio boxes to get feedback whistles? I saw an experimental art gig, where a performer sat on the floor with a box that produced similar feedback whistles while simultaneously playing an alto sax filled with water. It wasn't really experimental, since JC did it decades before. I wanted to laugh at the time, but the audiences were taking it all so dead seriously that I would have been in bother - reviled as a Philistine!

Here's John Cage's performance "Water Walk" from 1960 in the TV show I've Got A Secret, during which people in the audience were laughing:

[Consul]

The primary aim of modern art is the collection of money.

That's not the primary aim of modern artists—although some of them are/were good at self-marketing.
For example, Gerhard Richter's abstract paintings cost a fortune, but he surely didn't become an artist in order to become rich.

[Consul]

[Consul]

Art is a source of entertainment, but it is also a source of elevation—"the lifting up of the soul", "a raising of the mind to superior objects".
Here's Simon Shama standing in front of an abstract painting by Mark Rothko:

[Sy Borg]

Remember when John Cage was using those radio boxes to get feedback whistles? I saw an experimental art gig, where a performer sat on the floor with a box that produced similar feedback whistles while simultaneously playing an alto sax filled with water. It wasn't really experimental, since JC did it decades before. I wanted to laugh at the time, but the audiences were taking it all so dead seriously that I would have been in bother - reviled as a Philistine!

Here's John Cage's performance "Water Walk" from 1960 in the TV show I've Got A Secret, during which people in the audience were laughing:

What I saw was not in the same class as Cage's work. The performer I described was clearly inspired by Cage, but lacked his vision and imagination.

Yes, an audience of "normies" will laugh, but dedicated experimental music geeks most certainly do not! I had the feeling that if someone laughed they would have been forced to leave.

I experimented with postmodernim in music, making a collection of noise-based pieces. I stopped because mixing music that lacks visceral appeal can get to you after a while. Hearing those same discordancies and harsh tones again and again. I stopped when I found the noise exposure was making me me feel physically nauseated