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

Weren't you just bemoaning photorealism and saying great art needn't have such concentrated skill?

"Wasn't Ut (as it turns out) simply in the right place at the right (for him - not for the poor girl) time?"

Ah, but isn't being in the right place at the right time one of the main skills of a photographer who comments on human stories? Just like the journalist?

Gonna have to take the other post by line:
"don't you have to know that the girl is crying because of the napalm?"
Not sure. I first encountered that photo without knowing the full back story. It was still very powerful. So no, maybe not. It is enough that you have the characters, the setting, the condition of the characters and the narrative of their movements.

"Is it the same of different if you asume that the soldiers haev just raped her? Or if she's simply lost her mum and dad?"
It is different if you assume different things have happened to her yes. But not a difference to the main impact of the piece.

"Does it make any difference of you know the photographer's story about how he'd become detached and kept snapping away? Or that the US put out black propaganda saying that it was set up? Or to know about the wider role of the media inn that war?"

It makes no difference to the impact of the image. But it does make a difference to the ways in which the image can be understood. It means it has more than one context. But knowledge of those contexts does not change in anyway the impact of the image.

>>Weren't you just bemoaning photorealism and saying great art needn't have such concentrated skill?

"I contradict myself? Very well - I contradict myself. I am large and contain many multitudes."
(Walt Whitman)

Actually - I wouldn't make any firm statement on the issue - other than that realism alone *usually* isn't enough. (But then there's the hyper-realism movement in painting...Not to mention Edward Mueck...)
bonoboworld.blogspot.com/2006/08/edinbuggering-about.html

I meant http://bonoboworld.blogspot.com/2006/08/edinbuggering-about.html

'Truth lies in discourse.'
(Kierkegaard)

We shouldn't expect to reach a firm conclusion about art. The thing is to talk - and *think* - about it.

or just sit back and enjoy it

Criminy! Quite arresting stuff there.

What a superb thread.
I may even change the habit of a lifetime & take note of someone else's opinions (more than one of you, in fact).

Edward, you said in (appropriately) post 42:
>>
'Art as a put on'.

The unmade bed and pile of bricks are absolutely *not* put ons...and I could happily explain why, if you wish.
<<

I wish...

l8r. gtg. But it's to do with how Emin chooses to reveal herself to us in frank admission of her human shabbiness. Plus it's not just her bed hoiked into a gallery. It was put together with considerable force - tampons, condoms, ashtrays and all.

It's nice to see so much passion about art but I think that each viewer's opinion is as important as another's.

If someone feels nothing for a painting then nothing is lost if they find more to interest them in another artist's work.

Art is totally subjective and you cannot say that any of it is wrong.If given the choice of owning a Picasso or a Hirst it would not be wrong whichever one you chose, unless you really hated the one you chose.

"It's nice to see so much passion about art "
Yes, I'm quite impressed this hit 4 dots quite so fast!

Wow. Only made it to post 49 so far but this is truly a thread that shows the best of this site off.

Can I nominate this for thread of the year?

I for one, having never really appreciated 'art' or Picasso before am now dying to see a Picasso exhibition.

I did once see Dali's crucifixion painting at the Glasgow University art gallery (long moved on now I think). It was, I have to say, awe inspiring and nothing at all like seeing it as a picture on someone's wall or as a small print in a book. I really do think you have to see these things for real to actually *see* them.
I wonder if SS might change his opinion of that blue painting if he actually saw it IRL.

*returns to the backlog*

>> ...to dismiss it as 'The King's New Clothes' just because it doesn't float your boat is demonstrative of ignorance... <<

No Brother Roy, ignorance is the perpetuated state of psuedo intelligence perpetrated by the phonies of the Artworld. (I almost said something nasty about the abundance of drugs and homosexuality among artists and art dealers but caught myself in time.)

So let me just say that last week Andy Warhol's double image of Marlon Brando's publicity still of the Rebel Biker just sold for multi-millions of dollars. That's ignorance institutionalised by Christie's.

Another one, mostly a big red canvas by some other dickhead went for almost as much.

That said, the naked beauty of the Sleeping Civil Servant has set a new record for a living artist which - and I'm pretty sure Strangely Strane will agree - is just derivative of several impressionist and post impressionist works - but at least there's something to look at that you couldn't find in a book of wallpaper samples (like your big blue thingy) or in the wastebasket beside the photocopier (like Marlon Brando pics).
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10510181

peace
~jwf~

>>I for one, having never really appreciated 'art' or Picasso before am now dying to see a Picasso exhibition.

Result!

And, Orcus, the Dali is now in the Kelvingrove.

squigglejwfsquiggle...

Much though I enjoy this reactionary pose you like to adopt (well...no I don't...but I'm trying to be polite ), I think you're unfair about Warhol.

I'm with you 1000% on the commodification of art. The prices paid for whatever happens to be the latest fad for investors with too much money to spare is obscene. But it has nothing to do with the art itself.

I admit that I never got Warhol myself...until very recently.
http://bonoboworld.blogspot.com/2007/08/looks-scream-hang-him-on-your-wa-all.html

I promise you...there's value in it. Try not to let the money thing blind you to that.

That said...there's an argument that Warhol was hoist by his own petard - whatever a petard is. The rip-off aspect was part of his schtick. But *not* the whole of it.

Andy Warhol as in holes , I was in Pittsburgh last year and had a look around the Warhol museum , Pittsburgh was his home town . And although he is not in Picasso's league , it was very enjoyable .
Grayson Perry the British ceramasist ,< is that a word? , had a floor of work there and that also ticked all the boxes as to what is art , in that it had something to say and was done with skill and craft .
The USA has some fantastic collections of art on public display , the art institute of Chicago in particular has a massive number of paintings . The impresionists were particularly well represented and it was fabulous to spend an hour or two gazing at the Degas' , Renoir's and Van Gogh's . The Guggenhiem in NY was a disapointment not only was it covered in scafolding when i was there , they also had an exhibition by a sculptor I am not a fan of .
Bit of kulcha's good for ya , in it.

best fishes...tod

>I almost said something nasty about the abundance of drugs and homosexuality among artists < jwf

Oh go on, jwf, those are my favourite bits.

Isn't Grayson Perry a treasure? His pots are definitely technically accomplished...but that's not the point. Glagow;s GGOMA has one which, at a distance. looks like a goudy jumble sale item, all gold ormoulu. When you get close, you realise that the golden ornamentation is turds.

Degas, though:

Yes, I like him. Especially his post-Commune paintings where you can tell he was painting arounf cataracts. But I must tell the Little Ballerina story once more.

You kinow this famous statue?
http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/owlive/img/sep04/degas_ballerina_092204_big.jpg

The bronze was originally hyper-realistic waxwork. The subject was modelled in intimate detail, even under her clothing, down to her pubic hair.

The girl was thirteen years old.

Ballet was not a respectable occupation in those days; the girls were regarded 9and used) as tarts.

Degas paid the ballet mistress for access to her girls.

Originally it was exhibited as part of an installation. It was surrounded by prints illustrating the (then) popular 'science' of physiogogonomy - the ida that one could tell personality, and especially criminality, from facial features.

The title of the installation was 'A gutter specimeb and other criminal types.'

QUESTIONS:
Does knowing all that change our perception of the piece?
Should it?

I like these

http://www.1988revolution.blogspot.com/

a petard is a fart edward. with an intervening meaning regarding small explosives thought to be similar to farts in some way.

hope that helps.