Modernist and Postmodernist Con-Aritsts

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Is the bug in a cup art? MSK said that nobody here would call this type of stuff art.

I said none of the regulars here would endorse that. Not that they would deny the word "art" to it.

I can think of a lot of adjectives to show non-endorsement:

Disgusting art

Bad art

Unintelligible art

Silly art

Need I go on?

Michael

[Victor Pross]

Is the bug in a cup art? MSK said that nobody here would call this type of stuff art.

I said none of the regulars here would endorse that. Not that they would deny the word "art" to it.

I can think of a lot of adjectives to show non-endorsement:

Disgusting art

Bad art

Unintelligible art

Silly art

Need I go on?

Michael

Damn, are there any objects in the universe that aren't art? Why is this stuff art? How is it art? Is the institutional definition playing a hand in this line of reasoning?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Victor,

Here's a suggestion: give it a rest. Try another approach. The questions you keep asking have been discussed and answered by many people—many times and on long threads. You can agree or disagree, but to keep asking the same questions to the same people after they have answered them is no longer discussing anything. It certainly will not convince anybody of anything.

Michael

[Victor Pross]

Victor,

Here's a suggestion: give it a rest. Try another approach. The questions you keep asking have been discussed and answered by many people—many times and on long threads. You can agree or disagree, but to keep asking the same questions to the same people after they have answered them is no longer discussing anything. It certainly will not convince anybody of anything.

Michael

Michael,

Michael,

Nope. My questions have not been answered--except for your own attempt to answer. Thanks. But your arguments do not hold water for me. It was, in essence, a variation on the institutional definition: a whole industry looms on it. They are taxed as works of art. The intention is that these things are to be viewed as art--accpeted as art. You can call it ugly art...or bad art...or sick art---but you can't say it is non-art or anti-art. That is the argument. Well, I'm saying that it is not art. I am saying it with the same certainty that I know blood is in my body, not rocks and sand.

We agree on many other subjects, but not this one. That's okay. It's not the end of the world. Life will move on.

However, nobody else has answered this specific question I pose here. There has been much talk about abstract painting, but nobody here has dealt with the specific and clear-cut questions I asked here. For all you know, there may be some individuals who will praise the examples cited—cognitively and normatively and with a little ribbon on both to boot. We’ll see.

-Victor

[Ellen Stuttle]

There was no dancing around. I told you that Jeff did not speak for me.

Check the thread out again. This is what I said:

Jeff is a smart young man, not my mouth-peice. We are, in the end, 'stand-alone' individuals.

And grow up, Ellen.

That was what you said after exhibiting your dancing skills first. (Of course, it could be that all you were exhibiting was your inability-to-read skills. It is always a question if you're comprehending a sequence. The record is there for others to read, unless you take to editing.)

Meanwhile...as to your asking if the examples you discussed in the current post are "art" or not, I do not consider them art, no. I consider most of them acting out, except for the poor spray-painted dog, which would have just wanted to get the smell off its body, and the dead-bug-in-a-cup, which I consider just silly. A "no" answer in regard to those particular examples demonstrates nothing about Kandinsky and others whose work I do consider to be art (and indeed in some cases, Kandinsky's included, quite good art).

Ellen

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[Victor Pross]

There was no dancing around. I told you that Jeff did not speak for me.

Check the thread out again. This is what I said:

Jeff is a smart young man, not my mouth-peice. We are, in the end, 'stand-alone' individuals.

And grow up, Ellen.

That was what you said after exhibiting your dancing skills first. (Of course, it could be that all you were exhibiting was your inability-to-read skills. It is always a question if you're comprehending a sequence. The record is there for others to read, unless you take to editing.)

Meanwhile...as to your asking if the examples you discussed in the current post are "art" or not, I do not consider them art, no. I consider most of them acting out, except for the poor spray-painted dog, which would have just wanted to get the smell off its body, and the dead-bug-in-a-cup, which I consider just silly. A "no" answer in regard to those particular examples demonstrates nothing about Kandinsky and others whose work I do consider to be art (and indeed in some cases, Kandinsky's included, quite good art).

Ellen

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And we have Ellen down for non-art!! :cheer: NEXT!! :frantics:

[Jonathan]

Is the empty room with blinking lights art? Is the colored shit on canvas art? Is the bug in a cup art?

Could an empty room with blinking lights be art? Possibly, depending on the context. I'd need more information to decide. (Last night I read a few chapters of a book. Was it art, Victor? You'd need more information to decide.)

In these discussions I've given an example in which something that appeared to be an argument was art, one in which a gallery presentation of a shopping cart was art, and one in which a painting of a paint splatter was art. Not necessarily good art, but art nonetheless, even by your definition. It's not hard to imagine similar senarios in which blinking lights might be art by your definition. Same with a bug in a cup. With my current knowledge in my current context, I'd say they're not art to me, but they could be art to someone else with different knowledge and a different context.

Can colored shit on a canvas be art? Absolutely. Is there some philosophical principle which forbids pigments from being bound by bodily secretions? If so, are casein (milk protein), tempera (eggs) and encaustic (beeswax) paintings no longer art?

I doubt that I'd think highly of any of the works that you listed, but that doesn't mean that they can't be art.

J

Edited January 31, 2007 by Jonathan

[Victor Pross]

Can colored shit on a canvas be art? Absolutely. Is there some philosophical principle which forbids pigments from being binded by bodily secretions? If so, are casein (milk protein), tempera (eggs) and encaustic (beeswax) paintings no longer art?

J,

They are the materials to create art--presumably a painting in this case--but these objects are not art in and of themselves. I have a paint brush in my hand now and I am completing a painting. The brush is not art. The water I use for washes is not art. The tooth brush that I use to create certain effects is not a work of art. The spray I use as a protective coating is not art. But I can damn well tell you that they are expensive art supplies. Can excrement be used as art? It’s not likely. I'm not doing it, even though I may save money. But randomly spurted from the rectum --in whatever manner it happens to fall on a canvas—is not art. [This conversation has just grossed the barrier of supreme nonsense and into a new realm beyond description].

-Victor

[Danneskjold]

Apple Tree thing was my fault actually. I spoke for Victor based on something that I saw.

It wasn't your fault at all. True, your speaking for Victor was a mistake. Confidently predicting that someone else will agree with you, unless you know that person's views well -- and sometimes even then -- is stepping outside the bounds of what you can reasonably know. But in this case, it was just a spontaneous expression of your liking the painting. All Victor needed to do to correct the situation was to say something like, Sorry, Jeff, I don't consider that painting art. His dancing round the issue was no one's doing except his own.

Ellen

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There was no dancing around. I told you that Jeff did not speak for me.

Check the thread out again. This is what I said:

Jeff is a smart young man, not my mouth-peice. We are, in the end, 'stand-alone' individuals.

And grow up, Ellen.

Victor, in my initial post where I claimed the tree was art I did say that I thought you would agree with me. She wasn't saying I'm your mouth piece, just that I tried to speak for you which was my mistake. She's right on that count.

Jonathan

Could an empty room with blinking lights be art? Possibly, depending on the context. I'd need more information to decide. (Last night I read a few chapters of a book. Was it art, Victor? You'd need more information to decide.)

In these discussions I've given an example in which something that appeared to be an argument was art, one in which a gallery presentation of a shopping cart was art, and one in which a painting of a paint splatter was art. Not necessarily good art, but art nonetheless, even by your definition. It's not hard to imagine similar senarios in which blinking lights might be art by your definition. Same with a bug in a cup. With my current knowledge in my current context, I'd say they're not art to me, but they could be art to someone else with different knowledge and a different context.

Can colored shit on a canvas be art? Absolutely. Is there some philosophical principle which forbids pigments from being binded by bodily secretions? If so, are casein (milk protein), tempera (eggs) and encaustic (beeswax) paintings no longer art?

I doubt that I'd think highly of any of the works that you listed, but that doesn't mean that they can't be art.

J

I'll answer this with my opinion (I've adopted Rand's definition, at least until I find a better one). I don't remember where the shopping cart was art (I think it was when included with the theatric argument?) but I do know that the fake argument was art because it was a performance, and the recreation of the paint splatter is art (not my favorite) because it is, in fact, a recreation (with, if I remember correctly, the value judgment of correcting the blurred parts of the splatter). I would have to put more thought in on the blinking lights in a room, but bug in a cup? Please, tell me if one of those scenarios you imagined, because I have a feeling you would have a hard time making them reality.

As for the shit, if you can manage to do the colored shit on a canvas thing without making it completely without form or base in reality then I'd call it art. I think it's not art because it doesn't have form, not because of what was used.

[Victor Pross]

An interesting question to pose to the “abstract art people"—if I were to adopt a Shayne like line—is to ask: What about randomly applied drips and splatters of tar on a concrete sidewalk? Is this art? [Let’s assume, for those who are fans of the intuitional definition of ‘art’, that the tarred concrete was government supported via the NEA and placed in a gallery setting].

Edited January 25, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Danneskjold]

I figured I would quickly outline a few reasons why I like Rand's definition of art.

1) Intention is involved. The person must intentionally be creating art (metaphysical value judgment). It can't be an accident.

2) Creativity is required. This is why it is a "re-creation" and not a replica. (Is it recreation or re-creation?)

3) It is not subjective. I have said, numerous times, why definitions cannot be subjective.

4) It makes the picture show something to be considered art. Invoking feelings is completely different than depicting them. The color black invokes negative thoghts and feelings but that does not mean it depicts them.

Those are just off the top of my head right now.

In any case, what is or is not art by Rand's definition relies on the intention of the artist. I remember an episode of Family Guy where Peter is at an art gallery looking at a Picasso painting. He walks up to it, erases a part, and redraws it somewhere else. The crowd looking at the painting goes "OOOHHHHH" and one guy says "It's a face." Now, I am not prepared to say that the painting (I forget which one it was) is art by Rand's definition because I cannot speak for the metaphysical value judgment part of the painting. However, supposing that requirement is fulfilled, if something depicts reality in a way where you can tell that reality is there (even with distortion) and is intended to do so, then it is art (that's why I included the Family Guy scene. I just kind of took a while to get around to explaining it).

Just for the record, I wouldn't stand behind that argument with a gun pointed at it. It's far from bulletproof I kind of formulated it as I went along.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jeff,

There is another cognitive dichotomy of kind in Objectivism where I see matters of degree (and also more than two): art and entertainment. I see all artistic activity as the same activity, starting with decorative and basic communication things like decoration designs, telling stories about something that happened and things like that, then moving on to entertainment proper, then to art. I also think Rand made too little of the component of communication in art. She dealt with normative expression as a purpose of art, but it is also clear to me that one of the fundamental purposes of expression is communication.

You will make a mistake if you give the "institutional" concept Victor states any credence, at least in the discussions on OL so far. This is just a name for some people out there somewhere that he tries to attribute to people in this discussion who disagree with him. The essentials are much different and this is a shorthand manner of not considering them.

Your own method of looking and thinking is an excellent one.

About Rand, you have more or less described her view of the Objectivist concept of art, but once again, the Objectivist concept is not the only concept of art practiced by mankind.

Michael

[Victor Pross]

Jeff,

There is another cognitive dichotomy of kind in Objectivism where I see matters of degree (and also more than two): art and entertainment. I see all artistic activity as the same activity, starting with decorative and basic communication things like decoration designs, telling stories about something that happened and things like that, then moving on to entertainment proper, then to art. I also think Rand made too little of the component of communication in art. She dealt with normative expression as a purpose of art, but it is also clear to me that one of the fundamental purposes of expression is communication.

You will make a mistake if you give the "institutional" concept Victor states any credence, at least in the discussions on OL so far. This is just a name for some people out there somewhere that he tries to attribute to people in this discussion who disagree with him. The essentials are much different and this is a shorthand manner of not considering them.

Your own method of looking and thinking is an excellent one.

About Rand, you have more or less described her view of the Objectivist concept of art, but once again, the Objectivist concept is not the only concept of art practiced by mankind.

Michael

Michael,

The intuitional definition is not something I constructed from my imagination to serve as a devise to argue for argument's sake. It is an actual intellectual approach in the art community as espoused by certain art historians and other intellectuals. It is one argument among many other false ones. ["Art is what a purported expert says it is."]

-Victor

Edited January 25, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Ellen Stuttle]

Is the empty room with blinking lights art? Is the colored shit on canvas art? Is the bug in a cup art?

Could an empty room with blinking lights be art? Possibly, depending on the context.

J,

(1) I forgot about the blinking lights example in my earlier reply to Victor. Yes, that could be art, depending.................... (string of .'s intended).

(2) You might not have seen Victor's original post -- he's edited since. I'm going on what he described.

(3) Where I do agree with Victor is that what he calls "the institutional definition" is not a definition -- and that there is one hell of a lot of sheer gimmickry which these days is being touted and even sold to the tune of high bucks as 'art."

(4) NONE of this gets near addressing the issue of whether or not someone like Kandinsky was an artist, and a very real one.

(5) To repeat: I think that Rand's definition (and her discussions) present a barrier to, not a help to, understanding art.

Added comment to Jeff: I much applaud your questing and thinking on your own. I don't have time now to reply to your post which is further down the thread. But I enjoy observing your whole trying-to-figure-things-out-for-yourself approach.

Ellen

PS: J's post and Jeff's are the only two in the thread following my own last post which I've read. It's late my time and I skipped the rest.

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[Victor Pross]

(3) Where I do agree with Victor is that what he calls "the institutional definition" is not a definition -- and that there is one hell of a lot of sheer gimmickry which these days is being touted and even sold to the tune of high bucks as 'art."

Okay, okay…good. I was beginning to think that simply disagreeing with me was becoming a practiced art for its own sake. ["Let's just state the opposite of what Victor says."]

[Victor Pross]

Jeff

I disagree with Ellen regarding Rand's definition. Her definition is the most cogent (to my knowledge) that I have ever known of. But the important thing here is not to stare at the definition in a vacuum and cut it off from everything else that is apart of her esthetic theory. Do not consider it in isolation, but as an aspect from which there is a whole. String it all together and judge for yourself if Rand is intelligible and internally consistent—for the most part. For example, don't just say "yeah, I think we should be selfish" and chop off "rational." The same goes for art.

-Victor

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The intuitional definition is not something I constructed from my imagination to serve as a devise to argue for argument's sake. It is an actual intellectual approach in the art community as espoused by certain art historians and other intellectuals. It is one argument among many other false ones. ["Art is what a purported expert says it is."]

Victor,

Intuitional or institutional?

Also, I know of no one anywhere who uses the definition of art "as espoused by certain art historians and other intellectuals" as you give it ("Art is what a purported expert says it is."). But setting that aside, that is certainly not anywhere near to anything I have written, nor to anything I have read by anyone on OL either. Yet you attributed that to me. That is false.

Michael

[Victor Pross]

The intuitional definition is not something I constructed from my imagination to serve as a devise to argue for argument's sake. It is an actual intellectual approach in the art community as espoused by certain art historians and other intellectuals. It is one argument among many other false ones. ["Art is what a purported expert says it is."]

Victor,

Intuitional or institutional?

Also, I know of no one anywhere who uses the definition of art "as espoused by certain art historians and other intellectuals" as you give it ("Art is what a purported expert says it is."). But setting that aside, that is certainly not anywhere near to anything I have written, nor to anything I have read by anyone on OL either. Yet you attributed that to me. That is false.

Michael

Michael,

Please forgive me for the type-O. As for the institutional definition, it would seem Ellen knows of it. The point here is that I didn't pull it from a hat. Yes, you have used it in argument.

-Victor

Edited January 25, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Yes, you have used it in argument.

Victor,

I suggest you read my posts with a little more attention. But I am not perfect. (Did I hear gasps?) I admit that something I wrote might not be clear. (Did I hear more gasps?) If you can find a quote from me defining art according to the opinions of art experts, I would be most grateful because I want to correct it immediately.

Michael

[Danneskjold]

I don't remember who, and I'm not about to go dig through the "Art and Subobjectivity" thread to find it, but I seem to remember someone saying something along the lines of "people x, people y, and people z, all say art is this. Why should we listen to Victor?". I might be delusional though. It's too late and I'm going to bed.

[Victor Pross]

Jeff,

Yes, that is correct.

Michael,

Well, I did think you were perfect!

To clarify, I’m not saying that you put forth a “institutional definition” whereby you out-and-out say that 'art is what the purported experts say it is'—but it is an undercurrent in your line of reasoning. There is a clue there, a hint.

See if you agree with me. Let me quote you here first:

“Art (painting for the time being so as to stay simple and consistent with the previous posts) is exhibited in special display spaces like galleries, museums, halls, etc. People go there to contemplate it. So long as people produce it and consume it like that, it is cognitively ‘art.’”

Would I be wrong to assume that a painting—abstract or representational—is to be considered art because the intention of certain people in the “art establishment” is such that we are to think it so, regardless of the nature of the object? That is, if a given object is “exhibited in special display” –including a bug in a cup—such as in galleries and the like, that therefore, cognitively speaking, we are to view it as art? Why "they" said so.

It seems to me that the law of identity is being suspended for institutions and whatever they may wish to decree. This, to me, seems to be the tenor of your argument. Do you see where I see traces of the “institutional definition” creeping in – at least by implication? Can you see it at all?

Later on, you argue in protest against my raves against abstract painting as art:

“The same goes for abstract art (or modern art). You are claiming that abstract art is not art at all, even as you use the term "art" to identify what you are talking about and condemning.”

Here again, the establishment’s edict that unintelligible spears and drips randomly applied on canvas are art—whereas actual works of this sort would have never been identified as “art” in all of art history in its twenty-five hundreds years—to say nothing of when men were painting representational works on the sides of caves.

You see, it is the “establishment” that has dubbed abstract painting as “art”—as they are wont to do with any object if so decreed by them. And from this subjectivist approach—we have everything being tossed into the pot by these self-appointed guardians. The only reason that “abstract art” is called art is because of the continued efforts of alleged art experts to “educate” the public on the merits of modernism. That is part of the reason—and only part of the reason--why the term is apart of the common coinage of public exchange when referring to this type of stuff.

Now, here is a burst of what I took as your being totally exasperated with me, you wrote:

“Let's call it the obviousness premise. I see people all over the world engaged in an activity they all call 'art.' They buy it and sell it (often for oodles of money). They make it and exhibit it in the most important cultural centers of practically all the major cities of the world. They contemplate it. I look in several dictionaries and see it so characterized there. Then along comes Victor Pross and says it is not really art. All these people throughout ages are and have been engaged in something else entirely…”

My retort was: “Let’s deal with the facts—not an appeal to authority or census. Modernism and Abstract Expressionism is of the 20th century only.”

They sell it, you say. They exhibit it. Who is this "they"? What is the "it"? The "they" is the art establismnet. What is the "it". Anything that establishment says is art.

Michael, why are you pressing upon me all these people and their activities as an argument. It is as if you are saying “you are only one person—a lone voice—speaking contrary to an entire institution!” Well, you are saying that. And this coming from someone who read The Fountainhead?

Please tell me that I have bridged an understanding between us here.

-Victor

Edited January 25, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; I thought you were perfect too except when you're not.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Victor,

Thank you for those quotes, but you show that you have not understood the cognitive thing. On a cognitive level, I was discussing an activity of human beings (and the respective products). I was contrasting this activity with the activities of farming, manufacturing goods, building houses and roads, soldiering, etc. In this sense, this is the field of art, in which art works are created, displayed and traded.

For example, one might not call trans-fats food any longer because normatively we look at their recently discovered negative nutritional value. But trans-fat producing oil is bought and sold and used as food everywhere. So it is silly to stop calling it food on a cognitive level.

The same principle applies here.

This has nothing to do with any experts or "art establishment" or whatever. Art is simply an activity of man and the products of that activity. It is a concept that differentiates it from all other fields of human activity. This is an activity present in all cultures and times.

Is that so difficult to understand?

Michael

[reason.on]

Is the empty room with blinking lights art? Is the colored shit on canvas art? Is the bug in a cup art?

Could an empty room with blinking lights be art? Possibly, depending on the context.

J,

(1) I forgot about the blinking lights example in my earlier reply to Victor. Yes, that could be art, depending.................... (string of .'s intended).

I agree.

(2) You might not have seen Victor's original post -- he's edited since. I'm going on what he described.

(3) Where I do agree with Victor is that what he calls "the institutional definition" is not a definition -- and that there is one hell of a lot of sheer gimmickry which these days is being touted and even sold to the tune of high bucks as 'art."

I agree. The funny thing is that Victor has used "the institutional definition" to defend HIS definition of art, he just called it "tradition".

(4) NONE of this gets near addressing the issue of whether or not someone like Kandinsky was an artist, and a very real one.

Strongly agree. Not to mention the questions (posed against Victor's definition) of whether or not the works posted here by Turner, Victor Hugo, Frank Lloyd Wright, and others are art, or even if they took "skill" and "craft" to create (according to Victor, they are not and did not; talk about bucking "tradition". :-)

(5) To repeat: I think that Rand's definition (and her discussions) present a barrier to, not a help to, understanding art.

Added comment to Jeff: I much applaud your questing and thinking on your own. I don't have time now to reply to your post which is further down the thread. But I enjoy observing your whole trying-to-figure-things-out-for-yourself approach.

Also agreed.

RCR

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael,

Please forgive me for the type-O. As for the institutional definition, it would seem Ellen knows of it. The point here is that I didn't pull it from a hat. Yes, you have used it in argument.

-Victor

Victor is correct. I do know of it; I hear it used -- by some academicians (though by fewer of those than I think Victor would expect), by gallery people, by "just folks": "the institutional definition" goes along the lines, "Art is whatever those who put things in galleries put there."

And, Michael, I'm afraid that I along with Victor have discerned "the institutional definition" in your attempts to provide what you're thinking of as a "cognitive" definition. He gives examples in a following post. I remember seeing others. I'm sorry, I haven't time to search through the many posts on these various threads looking for further examples. In has seemed to me too, though, that you've been saying something to the effect: Anything that gets put in a place called an art gallery and is called art by those running the gallery therefore is art.

Ellen

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