h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I find it interesting that artists are so keen on framing their work into certain isms. What artists do or should do is to brake boundaries, not to contribute with their own set of them. Do artists perhaps create isms just to break them? Irrational.

I think it's generally critics and historians that create the Isms. The artists, as you say, tend to just 'do' their art, and, because of the way people can't help registering things with a certain degree of subjectivity, the work generally gets placed in a category, or Ism.

That's one of the main struggles for artists - defying that sort of pidgeon-hole behaviour in the public. That and having any money!

Isms are very helpful to art students as when writing essays you do not have to list every sinle artist. You can say "the Surrealists". But yes- it is very hard when someone asks you to describe your work not to resort to an ism. This is normally because no one know what you are talking about until you can justify it as being as part of a larger movement

One of the most interresting artisms in my opinion is dadaism. This was created by a group of artists in central europe in the 30:s (correct me if I'm wrong) and was almost like an art movement. They really wanted to change things these people.
Could it be that the artists of that time saw their role in society differently from the artists today? Artists were spokesmen for an alternative way of percepting life, they were the ones that should make us aware that our society were heading in the wrong direction. It was OK to get a bunch of artists together and create an ism in that purpose.
Perhaps today our society has reached it's wicked goal and art has another place in it. Is art more individualized nowdays, just as our western society as a whole?

The dadists grew in Eadtern Europe which has had a long history of state controlled art, art as a social mediator. The Dadists were destoyed by the pessimism of two world wars- if this is progression, then forget it.
I think you had better check out the big p- (post- modernism) if you think fragmentation of society is the cause of it's wickedness.

Thanks

When I was twelve, I was very tired of listening to people who talked like they always had the best answers for my life and for everyone else's life for that matter. I decided to start my own religion or area of belief. I would lead myself and others with a form of belief titled
Murphyism. The foundation for this belief system was Murphy's Law.

You have to prepare yourself for the worst to happen in any situations. If it looks like rain then prepare yourself for a torrential flood. Anything short of preparation for the worst scenario was foolish.

If you can get that going without getting depressed, it sounds like a fine ism. I often try not to have high expectations on the future. That should be Murphyism light then...

I think it was Fritz Perls (or one of his followers) who said, "little expectation then little disappointment." I really quite enjoy Carl Jung who challenged many "isms". In my opinion the artist challenges existing isms and offers the world a different path or at least a different way of viewing some segment of reality.