Mr. MacCruiskeen, I throw down the Art Gauntlet!

[AhabsOtherLeg]

My bed is empty, and my feet are not rubbed.

That's perfectly put. Know the feeling exactly. Even I won't get into my bed anymore.

[Project Willow]

^

Love is found at the end of a social media stream, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

I'll be here all week.

[MacCruiskeen]

*Sigh*

I only know sound for empty forests. I thrash and scream and wail, but just the dust and air respond because they have no will. My art is perpetually emerging. My loves are all unrequited. My bed is empty, and my feet are not rubbed. My system is not integrated, my largely unaided escape inevitably incomplete.

Does the universe respond to nothing but violation? Is the sweet song of a heart the most powerless thing there ever was?

Dear Willow, I would love to rub your system and integrate your feet. Surely that is what art is for, if anything. Unfortunately I have been a) busy, and b) intimidated by your gauntlet*, which reminds me of when I was foolish enough to choose aesthetics as my special subject in my third year when I studied (or "studied") philosophy at uni.

Q. What is Art?

A. Hmmm.

I don't have an aversion to art, on the contrary. I have spent my life with it. Yea, I do it, or so I have been told. You might even say I am addicted to it. (I wish I could be sure I am not joking.)

So, anyway, I'm reluctant even to get started. But duty calls, so I'll start by saying the obvious, which you know at least as well as I do: that Art is very Big Business, like Gold in the days of the Klondike, or Oil in the days of Upton Sinclair. Everyone wants to get in on the act - who can blame them? - and everyone (if you ask them) is doing it for purely noble or selfless reasons. Art is trade pretending to be religion and actually getting away with it.

Lady Gaga calls herself an artist and nobody laughs. This is, in itself, reason enough for anyone to be suspicious of the term "art". What's it doing, if it can include her, Bach, Jane Austen, Vincent van Gogh, Bertolt Brecht, Jimi Hendrix, Liberace and Dante? What's it for? What distinction does it signify? What kind of a worker is an artist, exactly?

Look at the job pages in the quality broadsheets and you'll see the heading: "Creative, Media and Advertising" (or even just "Creative"). Personally, I wonder what's going on there. Why do so many soi-disant (oo la la) artists ponce around like Osric in Hamlet? Could it be because they are essentally courtiers, i.e., servants of power, and welcomed by the powerful? It might be worth looking into.

More to the point: when a former widget factory becomes an Art Factory (because it's cheaper to produce widgets in SE Asia), my appreciation of the (increasingly-abstract**) art in that Art Factory is somewhat coloured by my awareness that 10-year-olds in Indonesia are making the widgets that make it possible for me to attend that Art Event.

This is all deeply boring, I know. I also know that it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual creation of an actual artwork. I know what it means to be completely absorbed in (or by) the making of something that will never feed or house anyone, to be selfless in it. I am not vilifying art.

So there, anyway. That was a load of shite, but at least it was a start. I am nothing if not a trouper.

It's past six a.m. here, so goodnight. I am a working stiff artiste.

*Is it OK if I imagine your gauntlet as a white silk opera glove? (I've done it already.)

**Why is that?

[Project Willow]

Dear Willow, I would love to rub your system and integrate your feet. Surely that is what art is for, if anything.

If I could make my art do that, I might be on my way to making something of real value.

Unfortunately I have been a) busy, and b) intimidated by your gauntlet*,

There is no need.* My use of a confrontational device was purely for entertainment's sake. I meant no greater challenge than to offer you a place to unburden yourself, and so to unburden your artist readers as well.

Q. What is Art?

A. Hmmm.

I have my own answer to those questions: a form of communication that employs faculties outside of the purely linguistic. Does that work? I don't know. Perhaps more pertinent questions are, what is art to our society, or how is art functioning in our society?

What's it doing, if it can include her, Bach, Jane Austen, Vincent van Gogh, Bertolt Brecht, Jimi Hendrix, Liberace and Dante? What's it for? What distinction does it signify? What kind of a worker is an artist, exactly?

You've hit on the first question I always ask myself when I approach a work of visual art. What is it doing?

Most of the time, in my travels anyway, it's failing to do anything outside of referencing a very narrow range (in terms of accessibility) of communication, and is fairly useless in terms of what one might argue is the general usefulness of non-verbal communication in human societies, if one has a certain set of beliefs, such as many posters here might share. Commercial art however is another form altogether, that in its current state, has been honed to a near pinnacle in service to manipulation.

Could it be because they are essentially courtiers, i.e., servants of power, and welcomed by the powerful? It might be worth looking into.

Has that not already been a demonstrable fact throughout history, in the vast majority of cases? Why should it be any different now? Seven years ago I took over a new gallery space. The only restrictions on the use of the space were physical. I could show anything I wanted. I thought, I'll make this a place for artists who are making work that challenges existing power structures or highlights neglected social issues. I assumed such work was naturally excluded from commercial and even mainstream non-profit spaces, and that this exclusion was the reason I wasn't seeing it in the community. My conception of the artist as cultural critic argued for this view. Instead, I was astonished to discover that very few artists were making such work. It turned out that a more circular process and one that was dependent on wider cultural issues was at play. It felt counter-intuitive, but I learned that a population of artists generally mirrors the larger population in that radicals are rare.

More to the point: when a former widget factory becomes an Art Factory (because it's cheaper to produce widgets in SE Asia), my appreciation of the (increasingly-abstract**) art in that Art Factory is somewhat coloured by my awareness that 10-year-olds in Indonesia are making the widgets that make it possible for me to attend that Art Event.

It is somewhat of a betrayal of our conception of artists, isn't it? I mean, of all people, they should be conscious of and comment on these realities, even in the midst of participating in the process that resulted in their presence at the factory. I can understand how that would produce resentment.

This is all deeply boring, I know. I also know that it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual creation of an actual artwork. I know what it means to be completely absorbed in (or by) the making of something that will never feed or house anyone, to be selfless in it. I am not vilifying art.

I don't think it's boring because I don't believe we've explored all the edges yet and that this is as good a community as any other in which to do so. I am glad to hear you say that you aren't vilifying art at base.

*Is it OK if I imagine your gauntlet as a white silk opera glove? (I've done it already.)

*I also imagined a feather swiped over your nose, or a nylon-covered toe brushed over your shin, under the table. All's fair in the virtual.

**Why is that?

I don't know, I can't see any reason for it whatsoever.

[vanlose kid]

sorry for intruding.

*Sigh*

I only know sound for empty forests.
I thrash and scream and wail,
but just the dust and air
respond because they have no will.
My art is perpetually emerging.
My loves are all unrequited.

My bed is empty,
and my feet are not rubbed.

My system is not integrated,
my largely unaided
escape inevitably incomplete.

Does the universe respond
to nothing but violation?
Is the sweet song of a heart
the most powerless thing there ever was?

love that. thought you might like this.

































Rinko Kawauchi

completely useless. such is beauty.

*

[Project Willow]

thought you might like this.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

^

[Project Willow]

I'm sorry Ahab.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

It's okay Willow, I've stopped crying now. I remembered I had some ice lollies in the fridge and cheered up instantly.

This is going to be an interesting thread I reckon. Very good points from both you and Mac so far.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

What do yous clever arty types make of this, from BBC News?

27 March 2012 Last updated at 13:43

Julian Spalding attacks Damien Hirst 'con art'

Art critic and former curator Julian Spalding has predicted the conceptual work of artists like Damien Hirst will soon become "worthless".

Writing in the Independent, Spalding described Hirst's work as "the sub-prime of the art world" and advised owners of his work to sell quickly.

Hirst, best known for his animals in formaldehyde, has been at the forefront of the British conceptual art movement.

Arts journalist Georgina Adam said Spalding's condemnation was "unfair".

"He is probably right about later Damien Hirsts, which are more like luxury goods than art," she told the BBC...

But Spalding told the Independent: "The emperor has nothing on. When the penny drops that these are not art, it's all going to collapse. Hirst should not be in the Tate."

Spalding said he coined the term "con art" which is "short for contemporary conceptual art and for art that cons people". [Catchy! ]

Spalding, who was director of galleries in Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow, where he promoted artists including LS Lowry and Beryl Cook, added: "It's often been proposed, seriously, that Damien Hirst is a greater artist than Michelangelo because he had the idea for a shark in a tank whereas Michelangelo didn't have the idea for his David.

"What separates Michelangelo from Hirst is that Michelangelo was an artist and Hirst isn't."

Simon Todd, from online auction website ArtNet, told the BBC he disagreed that the art bubble would soon burst: "The contemporary art market is very strong at the moment both in terms of the domestic, international and growth markets."

He said ArtNet "has been approached by financial organisations regarding arts investment despite the majority of the art funds collapsing back in 2009.

"The credit crunch seems to have made little impact and the auctions that suffered in the two years post-credit crunch are not feeling the comparative ill effects now."

Spalding's latest book, Con Art - Why You Ought to Sell Your Damien Hirst While You Can - is published next month.

Hirst first came to public attention in London in 1988 when he created the Freeze exhibition in a disused warehouse, showing his work and that of his fellow students at Goldsmiths College.

His exhibition opens at Tate Modern on 4 April and runs until 9 September.

Hirst's shark in formaldehyde - titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991 - will be on display, alongside other famous work including 1990's A Thousand Years, 1992's Pharmacy and a £50m diamond-encrusted skull, For the Love of God.

Hirst's sale figures dropped considerably between 2008 and 2009 although this fall coincided with the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank in the US.

Last year, one of his spot paintings - of which there are over 1,000 - sold for £1.8m.

The Tate Modern and Damien Hirst's company Science declined to comment on Spalding's claims.

Hirst's public gallery in south London, which is being developed to display his personal art collection, will open in 2014.

What the hll is all that?

His art is worthless, see, 'cos it's not going to be worth loads of money in the future. Just like Van Gogh's art was a load of total pish, until it started making loads of money, at which point he immediately became one of the world's greatest artists.

God damn you, Julian Spalding. Art critic? Sodding accountant more like. Damien Hirst's work may well be rubbish, but if it is now then it always was. They can't have it both ways.

[Project Willow]

Ahab, there is so much I want to say but can't, because I am not at leisure to devote the time to a well thought out and possibly sourced essay at the moment. Confession: it takes me so damn long to translate my idiosyncratically formed, visually-based thoughts to the English language. Grrr. Anyway, here's somewhat of what I might like to post on the subject.

Well, this is yet another skirmish in the various battles over a century or more as visual artists profoundly challenge the conventional limits and definitions of art, which has been wonderful for opening up new methods of expression, but not so wonderful for preserving established effective methods and the technical knowledge they require, (which most of us here, I would imagine, already know).

Spalding is claiming there is some intrinsic value to art that's stripped away along with the artist's hand in more manufactured, conceptual pieces. I don't know if I agree with what he says here, but I will say that over valuing concept, like over valuing or negating any one component of creative expression can produce poor results. I've felt it as a visceral reaction when I encountered ready-made types of sculpture that represent a single idea, as a painful emptiness. However, I don't think that means all contemporary conceptual work is intrinsically less valuable as a tool of communication.

Conceptual artists are using a set of symbols common to the language our times, just as painters of the renaissance did with mythological iconography, but they're using them in a way that works to exclude rather than address the masses. This serves the same ultimate purpose, to reinforce elite power. It doesn't matter if any one or group of works appears to mock or undermine the system, these flourishes are co-opted, and the result is the same. Successful visual artists function somewhat like court jesters, as they always have.

A central role artists can play, that of social critic, is of course rarely valued in its own time. So I might agree with Spalding on at least one of his points, that if we were to try to construct a system of valuation of artistic output, what future generations might think of the work is important, at they very least, in that sense.

What do other folks think?

...................

Did you know that Goya's original Saturn had an erection and that when the piece was moved, it was painted out? This really upsets me. I imagine the piece would be just that much stronger if the phallus had remained.

[JackRiddler]

Did you know that Goya's original Saturn had an erection and that when the piece was moved, it was painted out? This really upsets me. I imagine the piece would be just that much stronger if the phallus had remained.

No, I did not!

[MacCruiskeen]

Did you know that Goya's original Saturn had an erection and that when the piece was moved, it was painted out? This really upsets me. I imagine the piece would be just that much stronger if the phallus had remained.

No, I did not!

Nor did I. But it makes perfect sense, the mad violence plus the inflamed knob. I wish William Blake had lived to see that original painting and write about it. (Wilhelm Reich would have been interested too.)

[MacCruiskeen]

Willow, here's a new book that somebody brought to my attention:

The Art Kettle, by Sinéad Murphy

I haven't read it, and I have no idea if it's any good, but it is at least further evidence that more than a few people are at least a wee bit uneasy about what Art means, and is, in the year 2012.

PS I don't think I've ever said this before, but I should say it because it's true: I admire your paintings. I'll leave it at that, because I don't want it to look as if I'm trying to ingratiate myself in the middle of an argument. But whatever I argue (and my argument has been minimal and piss-poor so far), I am not arguing against people creating real works of art. It would be like arguing against breathing. What bothers me is Art, both the word (whether capitalised or not) and the enormously powerful and heavily-mediated and hugely influential contemporary institution that it signifies, and what it does to people's heads, not to mention their hearts and the rest of their bodies and therefore to their lives.

[Project Willow]

Willow, here's a new book that somebody brought to my attention:

The Art Kettle, by Sinéad Murphy

I haven't read it, and I have no idea if it's any good, but it is at least further evidence that more than a few people are at least a wee bit uneasy about what Art means, and is, in the year 2012.

Thanks for that, and just reading the introduction page it seems not far off from the critique my friend offered, which I have posted here before, and around which she created her legacy grant program.

PS I don't think I've ever said this before, but I should say it because it's true: I admire your paintings. I'll leave it at that, because I don't want it to look as if I'm trying to ingratiate myself in the middle of an argument. But whatever I argue (and my argument has been minimal and piss-poor so far), I am not arguing against people creating real works of art. It would be like arguing against breathing. What bothers me is Art, both the word (whether capitalised or not) and the enormously powerful and heavily-mediated and hugely influential contemporary institution that it signifies, and what it does to people's heads, not to mention their hearts and the rest of their bodies and therefore to their lives.

Thank you. I'm not certain we're having an argument, despite the dramatic title of thread, just pursuing a request for clarification, which you've answered quite eloquently above, in general terms. And in due deference I would ask, may I quote you? Yes, art with a capital A, bothers me too.

It's long overdue now that I posted this online, so I took the opportunity. Here is my friend speaking to art with a capital A, just two weeks before she passed. You might notice the tumor on her cheek, and she did this on 1500 ml of morphine, plus half a dozen other palliative drugs and after coming home from radiation treatment. She was an amazing human being.