Hello everyone! I can see you....
Today, we actually had class for the first time in a while. Mostly, we talked about the exhibit we saw at the Institute of Contemporary Art yesterday. It was a minimalist peice that was pretty much as minimal as it could get. So we had a big discussion about whether it was art or not.
A lot of people seem to believe that if something has a meaning, it counts as art, and if it doesn't, it's not art. In fact, Gracie said that Monet's Lilly Pad piece in MoMA was nice but that she just thought it was boring because it had no meaning. So I know I've talked about this before, but I just think it's really weird that some people can't accept something as art because it's only beautiful. I don't see what's wrong with that. That mirror in ITP at Tisch was one of the best pieces of art I've ever seen, and that had no deep meaning in it. It was just cool. But I'm getting off subject already.A lot of the group really liked the minimalist piece at the Institute and found deep meanings in it almost to a ridiculous point, and others thought the whole thing was just completely pretentious and stupid, and couldn't find any real meaning in it at all. I don't even know what I think. I have kind of opposing opinions sometimes, especially when it comes to art. In some ways, I feel like if the art doesn't make sense to people and it's all about it's meaning, then it isn't very good. If people don't understand your statement, then what's the point of even making it? But at the same time, there are many really interesting pieces of art that wouldn't make sense on their own and really need someone to explain them. Then, when they are well explained, they make perfect sense and say something really interesting.
I think that minimalist piece was one of those that needs to be explained by the artist or by someone who heard an explanation from the artist. Because it was kind of stupid by itself, and just because something can be interpreted as having a deep meaning doesn't mean it actually does have one.After class, I came back here and worked on things up until now. So I didn't really go out and do anything today. But tomorrow's a free day, so I'll have more social things to talk about then.
What I did do today, though, was check out my new counter on this blog. It does all kinds of creepy tracking things that I didn't even know about. It started when I was reading a comment on my question about HD from yesterday. The person who wrote it didn't leave a name or anything, and I was wondering if it was just some random person. Alissa (who suggested I get this counter in the first place) suggested that I check it to find out if it was one of my friends or not.
I explored the options, and found that I can actually find out how many times someone has visited, how long they visited for, their IP address, their location, the network they're on, where they found the link from (if they found it on a website), and probably a bunch of other things I haven't discovered yet. It's a little creepy actually, but it gave me a cool idea for a project. I don't know how I'd do the project though, so I have to talk to John about it before I disclose any information. But if I can do it, I will definitely need all of you to help.
Hi Singapore!
Hi Kentucky!
Hi Iowa!
Hi person from NYU!
I don't know who you are, but you should leave a comment or something if you ever come back!
Alright, I'm tired. So this is it for the night. Here's a clip of my New York project (STILL not done)
posted by Julia @ 2:01 PM
6 Comments:
Kind of reminicent of Koyaanisqatsi...
Exactly as I imagined it. Liked the music. But is it art?
In the Art World, art requires an art context. In an art context, almost anything can be art, beautiful, true, profound, or not. If you screen your video at the Whitney or at Eigen+Art, it is clearly art and it does not have to be loved or understood. If you screen it in a movie theater, it had better be entertaining. If you screen it on your grandmother's television, it had better be politically correct and not too long. It can still be art outside the art context, and film has a confining technology that implies art potential -- I mean, you probably can't find it on the kitchen counter or make cheap copies to sell at Big Lots -- but the context can dictate its credibility. The Whitney and Eigen+Art exist to bestow art context on work that the Art World finds of interest. If you go out and paint a skillful painting that looks like a Giotto or a Picasso, it may be beautiful but no one will want to give it contemporary art context because it was meaningful in the past. It is art in the historical context and therefore "quaint" in the Art World. Right now, beauty is not necessarily a consideration to the Art World and some curators and critics seem to find it a defect. Minimalism, meanwhile, has an aesthetic philosophy that is still interesting in the Art World even though it seems like it should be possible to exhaust its ideas eventually. (I guess that could be argued.) Unlike a lot of art movements, there is a library of intellectual writing behind it. It may not hold much appeal unless you can recall the thoughts that support it.
And, yes, on skillful lips, almost anything can be justified as art. It's a curious phenomenon of the Art World that keeps things democratic despite art's inherent elitism.
Personally, I don't understand why minimalism is still popular. It's gotten redundant by this time. Only so many people can paint a canvas a solid color and call it an original piece. I can't imagine someone painting in the style of Picasso would get much attention because "it's been done", yet it's ok to copy Kasimir Malevich.
But I think it's just because I think it's dull to begin with. My Russian art teacher last summer made it interesting for about 10 minutes, but at the same time I couldn't help thinking "ok, so the point was made, why is it being repeated?"
That's also part of why I didn't want to just study art in school. I don't like making ugly things, even if they have meaning, I value putting effort into the actual creation and not only into the three paragraph statement that will accompany it. So basically, I'd be religated to the world of dinky crafts person, which I like, but then why go to school for it?
I'm ranting. I'll stop.
Newsflash: Julia is going to hell.
http://www.thercg.org/youth/articles/0403-bagy.html
I feel like the argument here is whether something created so fast and so not unique can be worthy of calling art?
Well, art is a lot of things to me, and any skill developed so far from the median is art.
But as far as minimalism is concerned, maybe it is just a comment on itself, on art, exploring how far can they go before people say: What is this crap? By Clark's second law, the only way to know the limits of the possible is to go beyond them.
Then again, maybe the things at odds here are the talent of a master painter who spends days, months, years on a painting until he deems it perfect, or a modernist, who paints his in an hour, but paints hundreds. Funnily enough, I believe that both will come to the same resolution... they will paint a masterpiece, even if the master painter takes 2 years to paint his and the modernist 200 paintings, it will eventually happen, if they preservere.
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