tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74506761102029721322024-03-13T09:06:46.268-07:00The Metaphor Group"Metaphor" means "to carry across." That is what artists do: carry across their vision(s) of the world into images or sounds. And that is what we are here to discuss.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-48453754164670644702010-07-09T01:53:00.001-07:002010-07-09T01:53:30.048-07:00Deirdre McCloskey on the Arts and EconomicsEconomist Deirdre McCloskey on the <a href="http://deirdremccloskey.org/interviews/jack.php">arts and economics</a>. Some really interesting ideas here. A challenge to artists to represent more of the world than we typically do.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-79552938469110727702008-10-08T05:45:00.000-07:002008-10-08T05:47:58.017-07:00Patronizing the Arts Review<a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=15648&R=13C6C1FE3A">Here</a> is an interesting review of a book on patronage. The reviewer does an excellent job giving an overview of the effects of government and the university on the contemporary American arts.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-20072134765886498492008-10-02T06:25:00.000-07:002008-10-02T06:27:28.203-07:00Decline of Fads in the Humanities<a href="http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/09/graphs-on-death-of-marxism.php">Here</a> is an interesting piece about the decline of deconstruction, marxism, and postmodernism in the humanities. I must say, I do like the general direction of things. A gap is opening up that needs to be filled.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-5870056453465424132008-10-01T06:46:00.000-07:002008-10-01T06:47:45.133-07:00The End of Art<a href="http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6228">Roger Kimball</a> has an interesting article on the relationship among art, beauty, and religion I think worth contemplating and discussing.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-86018507330617250232008-09-29T08:01:00.001-07:002008-09-29T08:12:10.634-07:00Death of ArtSince the 60's, the question of "what is art," has come up. "What is poetry," "painting," "the novel," and many other "what is" questions have arise. Then a rash of declarations that painting was dead, along with tons of other humanities obituaries were written. I think these events show a time of crisis in the arts. This means that the arts are ready to emerge into something new. However, in order to emerge into something else, do we assume that the arts must fall/step back in order to leap forward. Or has this leap been prevented through redefining terms like "painting?" Does redefining terms resuscitate theses ideas from their dead state of being? Or is redefining terms is the fall/step back before the great leap? The great leap being the realization of the interconnectedness of all the arts and the degrade of separation of disciplines.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-8034983328478701282008-09-07T17:33:00.000-07:002008-09-07T17:34:32.611-07:00New Kind of CanvasNow here's a new kind of canvas: <a href="http://www.originalbellyworks.com/home.html">pregnant belly molds</a>.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-5916359023577024732008-08-31T20:42:00.000-07:002008-08-31T21:23:33.244-07:00Conservative ArtI read this blog about why artists hate conservatives from <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/why_the_artists_hate_conservat.html">American Thinker</a>. Beside the completely broad generalizing that was given in the article, I do think it would be an interesting debate about political leanings of most artists. If you read some of the comments, you also see a huge amount of ignorance about artists.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-62822018663723155532008-08-22T17:12:00.000-07:002008-08-22T17:16:45.974-07:00Face Recognition, Culture, and ArtHow could the face recognition differences between cultures reported <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,409145,00.html">here</a> be used in making visual art?Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-20299359307483352262008-08-06T14:43:00.000-07:002008-08-06T14:47:26.589-07:00Shakespeare's Poetry and More Complex Thinking<a href ="http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/davis_07_08.html">Philip Davis</a> describes some pretty interesting research on the way Shakespeare's poetry affects the brain. In essence, it suggests ways we can write poetry to make our brains work at a higher, more complex level through the way we use the language. Good poetry makes use of grammatical anomalies which are nonetheless grammatically and syntactically tolerated by the brain, forcing it to work at a more complex level than it otherwise does. In other words, good poetry combines the expected with the unexpected, stretching, but not breaking the language.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-39854917397123386212008-07-16T09:32:00.000-07:002008-07-16T09:34:32.170-07:00Art for Art's SakeArt for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful that is the faith I am searching for.<br /><br /> - George SandUnknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-86857673764796957272008-07-13T11:47:00.000-07:002008-07-14T13:17:35.187-07:00Animal "art"I was watching Sunday Morning today and I watched as a dog chewed up paper wrapped up in transfer paper. I began to wonder, why does the media call this art? After all, all the images that the dog had made were remarkably similar. The transfer paper was not the dog's idea. When you see paintings done by elephants and chimps, the style of painting does not change over time. These animals don't develop their images into something new. One could say, Rothko didn't change his style, but look at his early work and you can see the development of ideas into the style he repeated in his later works. Animals can only make similar images with mediums given to them by their human counterparts and apparently sell these images for thousand of dollars. There have been many angles to debunk abstract expressionist type work, but I have so far seen that all have fallen short of that goal, because artist will develop of an idea and animals can not. Well, what about that child that created abstract paintings. If you watch the documentary, her talent is suspect. Her paintings styles are all over the map with few, if any, series of development and from what I see, the paint was applied like a child applying paint. The canvas, paint, and tools were picked out by the parents. I am not saying that a child could not create art. There are prodigies, but any real child prodigies will get training at an early age. This girl was given no training, but is coached by her father. We would laugh at parents that called their 3 or 4 year old child a prodigy if the child just pounded his/her fists on the piano to make noise. So, why are we so quick to call everyone and everything an artist?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-48611194472004767382008-06-27T12:50:00.000-07:002008-06-27T12:54:27.141-07:00The Art of SurpriseHere's an interesting article titled <a href=http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/surprise-vineberg.html>The Art of Surprise</a>. He talks mostly about stories, since he is a film expert, but he does mention Vermeer. For the author, the art of surprise comes about when you have such complex characters that you can't pigeonhole them or say they are representing this or that. Other than Vermeer, is there any other visual artists of surprise? What would such a visual art look like? What could it look like?Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-71951524441959608882008-06-25T08:57:00.000-07:002008-06-25T09:31:26.743-07:00The Shallow EndI got to thinking, if in our current age is so shallow, has there been other shallow periods in time? Well that answer is a resounding, YES. The Roman Empire had several period of great shallowness. The French Rococo period was shallow city. One of the great painters of the Rococo, the Jeff Koons of his age, is Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806) made plenty of paintings with a wink and a nudge. The French Rococo was all about giving what the collectors wanted, i.e. sex, powerful portraits, and more sex. Don't get me wrong, the work is beautiful and not Everything that came out of that period reflects those ideas, but a Lot of the work was tailor made for the idol rich. Shallow customers = shallow art.<br />So, if the problem is the tastes of the collectors driving the tastes of the museums, then how do we create non-shallow collectors? You have to appeal to their non-shallow side, because I can assure you everyone has that side. For example, the Neo-Classical art romanticized about Republics, Democracy and Egalitarianism. (Two out of three is not bad). Those collectors believed in something greater than themselves and it reflected in what they bought and the artists they promoted. How do you appeal to the non-shallow side of the current collectors? I don't have an answer, but I am willing to listen to some ideas.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-15185983302914316892008-06-21T20:44:00.000-07:002008-06-21T21:07:25.148-07:00Postcards From Nowhere/Power StationI just read an article called <a href="http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=b24ee3a8-6d78-478f-9b95-a5b031d003c5">Postcards From Nowhere</a> on contemporary art and contemporary art museums that should thoroughly annoy Todd. If even the Lefties at New Republic are annoyed with contemporary art, that's really saying something about it. Takashi Murakami's work My Lonesome Cowboy, "a sculpture of a skinny naked boy with flying yellow hair, an erect penis, and an ejaculation so powerful that the thing becomes a twirling lasso, circling his head," is in my opinion a fine representation of what too many contemporary artists -- especially the ones the author is complaining about -- are actually doing when making their "art." Here's the problem: if anything can be art, then art is nothing, and it's time to shut down the museums and close the art schools.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ozip05lC54Y/SF3Pt7zNRJI/AAAAAAAAAEg/pj825aF5glw/s1600-h/AlessandroBusciPowerStation.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ozip05lC54Y/SF3Pt7zNRJI/AAAAAAAAAEg/pj825aF5glw/s320/AlessandroBusciPowerStation.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214552331618436242" /></a><br />And now, because I don't want this to be just a forum to complain about all the garbage that is out there, let me show an interesting piece called Power Station. The image seems to vibrate with the power of the power station and we see below the building an image that feels electric. It's simultaneously dreary and full of energy -- more ambiguous, perhaps, than the artist intended? Perhaps. But in doing so, the artist allows the viewer to interpret the work for him/her-self. The tyranny of expertise is avoided, meaning an expert on the piece would only contribute to helping make meaning from the work, but would never be the sole contributor of meaning to it.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-68471720724399701872008-06-16T08:08:00.000-07:002008-06-16T08:17:18.087-07:00Manifesto<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lsn319hn9Ys/SFaCjfzBedI/AAAAAAAAAMk/K6iVY9kgoi8/s1600-h/Self-portrait_small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212497165070465490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lsn319hn9Ys/SFaCjfzBedI/AAAAAAAAAMk/K6iVY9kgoi8/s320/Self-portrait_small.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>With Thomas Spencer permission, I have posted his Manifesto here for discussion. I thought it was an interesting take on realism. In a pluralistic period that we find ourselves, realism has been on the upswing since Pop art was born, just in various incarnations. So, here is a possible new movement in realism. Here is his site: <a href="http://tomspencerartmagic.blogspot.com/">http://tomspencerartmagic.blogspot.com/</a></div><div>.............................................................................................................................................................</div><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://tomspencerartmagic.blogspot.com/2008/06/general-manifesto-for-experiential.html">A General Manifesto for Experiential Realism</a><br /></div><br /><div>The Experiential Realist:<br /></div><br /><div>Uses their skill to recreate the actuality of what the eyes can see.<br />Renders everyday places, characters, situations, dilemmas, and objects, all in verisimilitude, as being of interest and importance.<br /></div><br /><div>Finds and depicts beauty (and ugliness) through their own experience.<br /></div><br /><div>Allows their awareness of the situation and circumstances of the subject to influence their perceptions and the way that they express them.<br /></div><br /><div>Experiential Realism is not a label to be put on just any painting based on observation. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Specifically, it is used to declare that the painting is important and relevant as a documentation of a place and situation. It lays claim to a particular form of “truth” as having been recorded and declares it as having value.<br /></div><br /><div>Of these, it is the first two that make a direct connection with traditional Realism. However, I think that it is the stress of the next two which marks the difference between Realism and Experiential Realism. In some ways it, nudges Realism (just a little) towards Expressionism.The earlier forms of Realism, Social Realism, etc, made a form of political (with small “p”) statement. For example, one major point behind the original Realist Art Movement was to say that great art was not necessarily about “major” people or events. It claimed that a great painting did not have to depict a king or noble lord or even people of wealth and influence (for example, Courbet’s, “Burial at Ornans”. In other words, Realism was a reaction against the prevailing art of the time. From this, I reason that, if Experiential Realism is to have any real importance, it must also be seen in the context of being a reaction to the prevailing art of our time.There is presently a dichotomy in the important means of visual communication. The most pervasive form of visual communication is through photography in all its forms. But, because the images are almost infinitely reproducible (especially now that most photography is digital), whilst the image may be highly esteemed, the means of reproduction has almost none. Films can win Academy Awards and can make the owners of the reproduction rights rich, but the individual video or DVD copy of the film has negligible value. It is only the experience of watching the film that is considered to be important. The DVD or video artefact is merely a convenient form of enabling this experience. On the other side of the split is the fine art object, a painting or sculpture. The experience of viewing the object may be highly valued, but the experience can normally only be gained by visiting the one example of the work and, because of this, the object itself may become worth a great deal of money. Hence a Vincent Van Gogh painting of sunflowers becomes worth millions of pounds in the present day art market.In 1812 Jacques-Louis David painted the Emperor Napoleon, one of the top celebrities of his day, in his study. If it ever came on the market, the painting would now be worth a great deal of money. Present day celebrities, are recorded in film, usually shown on TV, and in photographs, usually published in magazines. A photograph cut from a magazine is worth very little. If a celebrity hired an artist to paint their portrait, the portrait would be worth rather more but would probably only be seen by a very few people. The fine art object which becomes worth a great deal of money does not normally now rely on portraying a celebrity, rather it relies on providing a unique primary experience which can be gained only by visiting the object (and/or a vicarious second-hand experience which can be got from the popular media, usually discussing how ridiculous it is that the object is valued/cost such a great deal of money, e.g., the crack in the floor of the Tate Modern or Damian Hurst's diamond-coated skull).I would see Experiential Realism as closing this gap. It does not mean that other forms of art are “wrong” or worthless, but it is art about normal, average places and people. And it is for normal, average people. To appreciate it, a specialized art education is not required, just some visual sensitivity and awareness. It cannot be produced cheaply, because it is time and skill intensive, but neither is it unaffordable. Hopefully, it will also be of such a quality that the viewer will return to it again and again and still discover new aspects of the work – for that is what differentiates it from a mass produced image where only the straight-forward perception of the image is important.Experiential Realism is also a “Modern” art – and will continue to be so. The Modernism comes from the fact that the artist will always be an artist of their own time, painting the things of their own time. In its own way, each painting is an historical document, because, working within the strengths and weaknesses of the medium, it records the truth of a place and situation.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-91678292701697614282008-06-15T15:22:00.001-07:002008-06-15T15:53:49.333-07:00Competing Arcs<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ozip05lC54Y/SFWcuym4HOI/AAAAAAAAAEY/CC8EAhPZSPY/s1600-h/La+Grande+Arc+de+La+Defense.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ozip05lC54Y/SFWcuym4HOI/AAAAAAAAAEY/CC8EAhPZSPY/s320/La+Grande+Arc+de+La+Defense.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212244471423966434" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ozip05lC54Y/SFWWgfZZkQI/AAAAAAAAAEA/ednxoC08b8o/s1600-h/Arc.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ozip05lC54Y/SFWWgfZZkQI/AAAAAAAAAEA/ednxoC08b8o/s320/Arc.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212237628679229698" /></a><br />I just learned about this monstrosity in Paris, La Grande Arche de La Defense. It is a giant, almost featureless cube. The wikipedia entry says that it was supposed "to be a 20th Century version of the Arc de Triomphe: a monument to humanity and and humanitarian ideals rather than military victories." If that is what it's supposed to be, then please explain to me why the Arc de Triiomphe is a far more magnificent, beautiful work than is this dehumanizing block.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ozip05lC54Y/SFWW3VshihI/AAAAAAAAAEI/OPhzSwxNln4/s1600-h/arc-de-triomphe.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ozip05lC54Y/SFWW3VshihI/AAAAAAAAAEI/OPhzSwxNln4/s320/arc-de-triomphe.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212238021212080658" /></a><br />Seriously, look at the Arc de Triomph. This is a work which has meaning. You don't have to know a thing about the French Revolution to gain meaning from it. Meaning is built into the work itself, and can be gained by anyone looking at it. The Grande Arche is a stark, bare, meaningless cube -- unless you are told what the meaning behind it is by an elite cadre of intellectuals who designed it and get to write on it endlessly, of course. And that, of course, is the problem with it. There is a tyranny of meaning in the Grande Arche -- we have to be told what it means to get any meaning from it. We are reliant on others to tell us what it means, and we have to rely on their expertise. With the Arc de Triomph, however, the meaning is inherent to the work itself. There is no tyranny of meaning. Further, it and the Grande Arche are equally impressive, but the latter has the oppressive architecture found in many fascist works of architecture -- designed to make the person feel small and insignificant next to the great power of the state. Is this not, after all, what Mitterand was after in commissioning this piece? If you look at the second picture I posted, you can see what people look like in relation to it. What other purpose could there have been, but to create this dehumanizing effect? This is no monument to humanity and humanitarian ideals -- it's a monument to socialism and other dehumanizing, anti-humanitarian ideals.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-22814453500940965812008-05-31T07:16:00.000-07:002008-05-31T07:21:19.665-07:00What happened to history and art?Hegel described the idea of an end to history. If you think about the context of Hegel was describing, he was talking about an event that changes everything and which leaves the world in a transitional state. The end of the Napoleon era is an example of an end of history event. After Napoleon you had the rise of countries that had never really been all together, together, like Germany and Italy. England soon became the lone superpower, at least for a short while. France managed to remain the cultural center, but the art had changed. A romantic art had arisen out of the ashes of the Neo-Classical. The romantic art included a great many styles of art ranging from the expressionistic to the realistic. Everything was influx until the road to iconoclastic art started with the Impressionists and played out until the 1980’s. An event within many of our lifetime is the fall of the Soviet Union. The US was declared the lone superpower for a little while. And now we are seeing the rise of China and India. Europe has become even more unified in a very short time. Art styles and content are all over the map in this Post Modern period of art making. Yet again we are finding ourselves in an end of history moment in time. This is a great opportunity for artists and the world to set the projection of history for maybe the next 100 years.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-85471300050891199172008-05-29T13:49:00.001-07:002008-05-29T13:51:25.495-07:00Parameters and ArtWhat are the parameters of art?<br /><br />What are the parameters which make a bunch of words poetry?<br /><br />What are the parameters which make a drawing or painting art?<br /><br />What are the parameters which make an 3-D entity a sculpture?<br /><br />What are the parameters which make sounds music?Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-41806944021879770032008-05-19T13:36:00.001-07:002008-05-19T13:36:56.108-07:00On Literature and HealthMy posting <a href="http://emersoninstitute.blogspot.com/">On Literature and Health</a> can be found at The Emerson Institute for Freedom and Culture's blog.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-23523543307799698782008-05-15T07:16:00.000-07:002008-05-15T07:17:09.595-07:00RIP, Robert RauschenbergNow that Rauschenberg has died, perhaps we can move beyond (be finished with) his kind of late Modernist/postmodern art. Some of his works were interesting. Some were clever. But if we judge him by his effect on art, I'm not sure how well he'll be judged. Naturally, everyone's throwing in their two cents' worth, from <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2191452/">Left</a> to <a href="http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertKnight/2008/05/14/junking_the_real_meaning_of_art_rip_mr_rauschenberg">Right</a>. His iconoclasm will undoubtedly be praised -- but what is praiseworthy about attacking what is at the very center of art? In the end, praising one's iconoclasm is praising one's hatred for beauty. <br /><br />Over on TCSDaily, there is an interview with <a href="http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=051308A">Tom Wolfe</a> who admitted that artists create for the same reason as God created: for their own glory. This is perhaps true enough. The artist does in a sense pull works out of "airy nothingness" (Shakespeare). More, artists seem compelled to create. And what are they creating but parts of themselves? An artist's art is a reflection of his or her soul, whatever else it may be. More, it is also an attempt to transform the world to reflect the artist him- or herself -- to approve of the things the artist approves of, to condemn the things the artist condemns, to see the world the way the artist sees it. That can be comic, tragic, or romantic, beautiful or ugly, serious or nonserious. <br /><br />Who, then, was Rauschenberg? ANd what kind of world was he trying so hard to create?Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-26923629699259838672008-05-13T05:30:00.000-07:002008-05-13T05:33:04.754-07:00Literary Studies as ScienceThere is hope yet for <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/05/11/measure_for_measure/?page=full">literary studies</a>. One hopes people like Gottschall do finally take over our English departments. Of course, the fact that he has already been editor for a major book and now has out another major book of his own but is still only able to get an adjunct position says a lot about the current state of our English Departments.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-55990584492437718522008-05-05T10:17:00.000-07:002008-05-05T10:21:27.345-07:00The Tedious and the Repellent<a href="http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Art---ethics-at-Yale-3828">The New Criterion</a> has a good article on the Shvarts "art" case. In this article, the author describes contemporary avant garde art as showing that "the unutterably tedious can cohabit seamlessly with the repellent." If that isn't an apt description of much pomo art, I don't know what is.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-23639569811495545182008-04-30T12:21:00.000-07:002008-04-30T12:45:47.246-07:00Art, Reality, ConceptMy grandparents, who were avid birders, preferred those bird books with color illustrations to those with color photographs. The reason was because the illustrated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Kiskadee">great kiskadee</a> (or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_sparrow">fox sparrow</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrub_jay">scrub jay</a>, etc.) looked more like any great kiskadee they would see than did the photograph, which was of a particular great kiskadee. The illustrator has done the work of creating an image -- an ideal, or concept -- of the great kiskadee, which is impossible to do with a single example. To create a concept, you must have more than one example of the object being conceptualized, and a conceptualized object makes other similar objects easier to identify. But if you have a single example to work with, you are uncertain if a similar object really is of the same kind as the object of comparison. <br /><br />We create concepts -- ideas, or Forms -- by taking a set of similar objects and mentally subtracting the differences. We then give that set of objects a label to help us hold them all together. Metaphors are necessary to reorganize our conceptual categories. They create new overlaps, stretch our conceptual categories, and push us into new territory. All art is metaphorical.<br /><br />All art too is conceptual -- in part. More accurately, art lies on the borderland between the conceptual and the perceptual. Even the most accurate photorealistic painter doing a portrait necessarily has in mind the faces and bodies of every person (s)he has seen. The painting contains within it the tension of representing the object painted and representing the concept of the object painted.<br /><br />A concept is a concept of something. Those abstract artists who claim to be painting "pure concepts" are thus doing nothing of the sort. One can paint a conceptual tree, a conceptual dog, a conceptual horse, chair, or person -- or even geometrical shapes representing higher-order concepts/abstractions -- but what would it even mean to paint the concept of concept? (A paradox arises here: doesn't the concept of concept necessarily contain itself?) A painting or other work of art is always representational -- concepts are mental. Thus, any work of art is the best that artist can do to represent the meeting of the mental/conceptual and the real/perceived world.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Ozip05lC54Y/SBjK2e1pvgI/AAAAAAAAADo/WPTLZgbxV5s/s1600-h/N00476_8.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Ozip05lC54Y/SBjK2e1pvgI/AAAAAAAAADo/WPTLZgbxV5s/s320/N00476_8.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5195125207511711234" /></a><br />We use representations to communicate to each other. A word is a representation of a concept, and a concept is a mental representation of a set of various similar objects. My set is not your set, so what we communicate is never without some noise or error. If I say "tree," I may be thinking of maples and you may be thinking of pines, so there will be some level of miscommunication. We also have different emotional tags attached to concepts (which include experiences). I will experience Turner's "The Shipwreck" in a different way than someone who has been in a small boat on stormy seas. BOth experiences are equally legitimate, though each will result in different interpretations.<br /><br />Art is thus a kind of language, as it communicates information from one person to another. Art too is most beautiful when it achieves the balance between the conceptual -- which is one -- and the perceptual -- which is many. This is also reversed, and this reversal is most evident in art -- because the concept is one made of many, and art represents one thing being perceived by the artist. A beautiful work of art represents this tension between the unique object and the conceptual one derived from the subtraction of the uniquing elements in each individual object in a set. This tension is necessarily present in what we typically think of as being representational work, but can be lost in the most abstract works. It is also lost in those works that push toward the perceptual/reality. Such works may not lack in beauty from other paradoxical tensions inherent in the works, but such works won't be as beautiful as they otherwise could be. They may not even be works of art.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-64492140047606383222008-04-29T18:41:00.000-07:002008-04-29T18:44:22.541-07:00Lice ArtNow we have <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353226,00.html">Head Lice Art</a>. Germans covered in lice in an Israeli museum -- and they claim they didn't think of the first thing that popped into MY mind when I read it was Germans doing it. Otherwise, what an incredibly stupid and boring stunt. I'm not calling it art. Kitsch is the portrayal of a world without shit (Kundera), but what's the word for the opposite, where you portray a world as nothing but shit?Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7450676110202972132.post-8158299851221125052008-04-28T06:02:00.000-07:002008-04-28T06:07:04.568-07:00Taskmasters and Gurus<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120900328811040439.html?mod=opinion_journal_leisure_art">Here</a> is a really thoughtful piece on the Shvarts debacle. Here is the problem, as far as the author is concerned:<br /><br />"It is often said that great achievement requires in one's formative years two teachers: a stern taskmaster who teaches the rules and an inspirational guru who teaches one to break the rules. But they must come in that order. Childhood training in Bach can prepare one to play free jazz and ballet instruction can prepare one to be a modern dancer, but it does not work the other way around. One cannot be liberated from fetters one has never worn; all one can do is to make pastiches of the liberations of others."<br /><br />But isn't anarchy, meaninglessness, and nihilism kinds of shackles? Disorder prohibits freedom just as much as oppressive laws. Art must have good sets of rules to maintain its freedom.Troy Camplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16515578686042143845noreply@blogger.com2