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

The nicest art I have seen recently is in the shapes section of the science museum. The things there are at one level pretty little odd objects that somehow seem impossible and on another level the physicalisation of some beautiful mathematics.
Well worth a look.

The nicest art I have seen recently is in the shapes section of the science museum. The things there are at one level pretty little odd objects that somehow seem impossible and on another level the physicalisation of some beautiful mathematics.
Well worth a look.

Chemo: I went to art school and studied things ranging from painting through to rather more interesting stuff like video, cd-rom, performance art, and sound. The old adage that "life is art" may be bullshit, or at least a tired old argument, but I'd like to think that a wonderfully amazing coincidence can be art, more so than conscious effort. There's nothing to say that SUBscious effort cannot be the very same after all!!

I watched a "human interest" story, as they say, the other day about a painting elephant. It was quite eerie to see the animal at work. It didn't just slap the paint around monkey-fashion; but, rather, appeared to actually compose. It would apply some paint; then seem to appraise what it had done in the same manner as a human artist. The story went on to say that there are other elephants in captivity world-wide that are keen painters; and that elephants in the wild have been observed drawing with sticks.

Actually these elephants are not painting. they may look like it but in fact they are writing memo's for themselves in Pachydemese.

Dancing Tree, 40 people on a train reading the same newspaper is a product of neither conscious nor subconscious effort. It is a mere coincidence and therefore cannot in itself be art. However if someone took a photo of it, that might be art. I think that is the essential difference.

On this note, perhaps you art school people might be able to tell me how essential permanence is to art?

Andy Warhol was at the time meaningless and self-indulgent. As was Yoko Ono and anyone else that makes challenging statements erring on the side of a pile of hogshit. Art has no place without historical context? Are we talking art only in the sense of people with stupid hair waving paintbrushes and building statues from dried mud? Music is an art form. Words can be used as art. I try and stick to these to avoid being faced with angering pretension.

If you believe that art is a creation of the extraordinary out of the ordinary, then you probably consider VanGough, Picasso, Mozart or Frank Lloyd Wright to be true artists.

The propensity of many current 'artists' to do nothing more than run around in the media and point out things that already exist, call them art, and then try to lay personal claim on them unfortunately does qualify them as artists too. These people are a very special type of artist.

They are called scam-artists…

are you thinking of anyone in particular?

Have you also seen the painting otter? Apparently the otter not only creates marketable paintings but has also acted in a BBC series. It's a depressing day when you realise an otter has a more successful career than you.

There was an exhibition that came to Edinburgh earlier this year featuring a house with plain white walls filled with red sandstone bricks arranged in all the possible regular conformation possible with 24 bricks, one formation to each room.

My life is so much more complete since seeing it.

Never try to put a definition on art. You leave yourself open to argument. The best arguments against pretentious w*****s are those that call into question the amount of skill involved in producing something. Jackson Pollock, the red sandstone brick git, Yoko Ono and the bloke that did the 144 square bits of aluminium are dealt with in a single stroke.

Ah, so in your view art requires skill rather than imagination?

One part of it does. I'm not describing art as an excutcheon of skill, nor as a demonstration of imagination and vision. Nowadays the word "Art" doesn't really need the usual suffix of "-w**k" - it means the same with or without it. It comes back to the people-take-things-too-seriously argument. If people looked through a window and said "Ah. Twenty-four red sandstone bricks. Gosh.
How incredibly interesting and thought-provoking. I'm ashamed to have to dignify it with a comment" everything would be fine. As it is, people looked through the windows, went back to their office and wrote "the artist's inner vision blah blah waffle bollocks deeply inspiring blither jibber not a complete waste of time, pace and money by any stretch of the imagination waffle subtle juxtaposition of reality with implied creative metaphysical structural fabric blah footle mumble" before sending it off to their editor and hotfooting it down to the nearest wine bar for cappucino and rhubarb oatcake. It's the same with the idea that there whould be one chart for crap synthetic non-music and one for real musicians - people making sculpture or paintings of no value should be reviewed by people of no value to be read by people of no value provided they keep it all to themselves and don't tell us how much money some w*****s see fit to spend on such things. Golgafrincham 'B' Ark. Meanwhile, Gomez released another single. A little behind the standard of Get Miles or Make No Sound but still damn good and recorded in a shed for thruppence. This has a measurable effect in the wellbeing of real people by inspiring them and giving them something to which they might sing along. Music hath charms and purpose. Twenty-four red sandstone bricks have a purpose but they're not being put to their best use lying on the floor of a gallery. Maybe someone would argue that it's the brick's presence in an environment so removed from their usual site of being that makes the whole thing so interesting. If they wish to argue in this way they can. In so doing they put themselves right where the creator of the piece wants them. It's all part of the vicious circle; the only people who could break it would be the artists themselves - a few words to the effect of "I can't believe you wrote all that crap in all those sunday supplements and actually got paid for it! I was only seeing if some w****r journo would be taken in by my stupid clothing and nonsensical utterances!". This will never happen as they'll keep doing it as long as they get paid.

hate to say it Wingpig but the bricks have obviously provoked no end of thought in you...subtle, isn't it?

Some of them have said this. Many of the "new breed" of artists, at least in the UK, cannot believe that their stuff is worth so much, and they are on record as saying they're blagging it!

Damien Hirst went one better: do you remember the spin paintings? He did them as a final joke prior to his attempted move to the world of film (his short films are actually quite good too). Anyway, he spun some round bits of wood and dropped paint on them, rather as a five year old would (except with a smaller piece!) He sold them for about 5K. One day he gets this call from a distraught buyer: they left their painting on the floor and their 2 year old daughter scribbled all over it with her crayons and paints. Damien simply asked them to bring it back to him to "see what he could do". On seeing the painting he declared it an immediate improvement and offered to swap it for one of the others he had lying around. The parent agreed, completely missing the point that it probably had more value after his kid had played around with it, if not in a capitalist sense. Hirst, of course, couldn't give a shit either way!!!

I don't think about the bricks. I think about the irritating bastards that carp on about bollocks and get paid. There is no language strong enough to express my loathing for these people - not underlining, not putting *asterisks* either side; imbeciles such as these have been the bane of my life since I can remember. They irritate me in some deep way that surpasses the need to visit physical harm upon them - the only thing that could serve as retribution for these people would be for them to see exactly how worthless they are. Maybe they'd implode. Maybe one day I could lock them in a room with nothing to look at but a view of the countryside. I'm going to sail away to a distant shore and live like and apeman. Ray Davies had the right idea.

As there can be no real value put on art apart from what you yourself perceive it to be worth, I don't know why people get so het up about how much money people pay for it. Beauty in the eye of the beholder and all that...of course that's discounting hype, PR and snob value.

Anyway Wingpig, when you say that this brick creation has "no value", can you give examples of artworks that "have value" and what that value is?

I'm not convinced that you can hang a "value" on any piece of art, except to say that the value is simply what somebody is prepared to pay for it. If nobody wants it, it's worhtless, if loads of rich people want to pay big bucks for it, then it's valuable.

Precisely: any thing (or anything) is worth exactly as much as someone is willing to pay for it. Hence, a piece of art made of a few dozen bricks is worth thousands, whilst the same bricks are worth only 20 quid. People pay for ideas. And, if the ideas are crap, people just pay ...

How are you defining the artwork in this case? As a thing done by someone to be registered in some way by other people, G-Love's first album was well worth the money. A while back I saw a painting by someone whose name I don't recall that looked nice. I didn't pay to get in to see it but would have been happy to do so just for the one painting. I've read many books I consider to be of value to the extent that I am happy to give money to the creator. I've come out of cinemas more than once without bemoaning the loss of my three pounds to someone who doesn't deserve it.